Latest news with #Audit
Zawya
30-04-2025
- Business
- Zawya
AI Transforming Financial Reporting and Auditing in Qatar and beyond
Doha, Qatar – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the landscape of financial reporting and auditing, with 72% of companies globally already piloting or using AI tools — a figure expected to reach 99% in the next three years, according to KPMG's latest report 'AI in Financial Reporting and Audit: Navigating the New Era.' This global shift mirrors developments in Qatar, where the Qatar Digital Agenda 2030 aims to accelerate digital transformation and drive innovation across all sectors, including financial services. With national investments in AI and advanced technologies, the integration of AI in audit and reporting is poised to enhance transparency, accuracy, and real-time insights. 'The AI age is here — and it's reshaping financial reporting as we know it.' said Gopal Balasubramaniam, Partner and Head of Audit at KPMG in Qatar. 'As auditors, our mission is clear: lead responsibly, innovate boldly, and help our clients unlock the full value of this transformation.' Companies are increasingly looking to auditors to lead this transformation. Over 80% of global respondents say their auditors are already ahead or on par with them in adopting AI for financial analysis. In Qatar, KPMG is embedding AI into audit methodologies and helping businesses move towards more proactive, predictive, and continuous audits. Key priorities companies want from their auditors include, Improved audit accuracy and efficiency, Real-time insights and faster reporting, and Predictive analysis and data-driven decision-making While traditional AI is already delivering productivity gains, Generative AI is emerging as a top priority for financial reporting leaders. Nearly half of the global 'Leader' organizations will prioritize GenAI in the coming year — a trend likely to influence firms across the Middle East. As adoption accelerates, so do concerns around data security, ethical use, and regulatory compliance. KPMG's Trusted AI Approach ensures AI tools are implemented responsibly, prioritizing transparency, fairness, and accountability — values that resonate strongly in regulated markets like Qatar.
Hindustan Times
29-04-2025
- Health
- Hindustan Times
Data on food business operators lacking in TN, no uniformity in surveillance: CAG report
Chennai, The Food Safety Officers in select districts in Tamil Nadu did not have complete data on Food Business Operators functioning within their area, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, said on Tuesday. Due to the absence of records/details relating to inspections, the Audit could not derive an assurance that all registered FBOs were actually inspected at least once a year by FSOs as per the Regulations, the CAG report on Compliance Audit for the year ended March 2023, tabled in the Assembly said. Procurement and supply of high-end laboratory equipment without adequate planning, or ensuring the availability of sufficient infrastructure and adequate skilled manpower to handle the equipment, adversely affected the overall performance of the Food Analysis Laboratories, it said. In the absence of specific targets, there was no uniformity in the number of surveillance samples lifted in the districts. Inordinate delay in testing samples and reporting results, allowing untested food to be consumed by the public and not following food recall procedures defeated the basic objective of food safety and exposed the public to unsafe food. The inordinate delay in obtaining accreditation by Food Analysis Laboratories led to samples being sent to NABL accredited private laboratories which resulted in discarding 19.79 per cent of the collected samples, as they expired even before analysis. "This resulted in non-ascertainment of the quality of samples lifted for testing thereby defeating the purpose of lifting of the samples," the report said and recommended periodical surveys to bring in all FBOs under the ambit of the Act to ensure a comprehensive and reliable database of FBOs for ensuring better enforcement and administration of the provisions of the FSS Act. "The government should address FSSAI for enabling an 'alert system' in the FoSCoS software by which FSOs get advance notification ahead of the dates by which their RCs/licenses expire so as to ensure that all FBOs carry out on their business with only valid RCs/Licenses," the report said. Timely approval for prosecution to punish erring FBOs, conducting periodical inspection of FBOs, especially street food vendors, steps to ensure that the food offered for public consumption was safe and conformed to standards besides taking stringent action against violators, and providing adequate manpower in the department for effective discharge of statutory functions were among the various recommendations. The government should put in place a mechanism to ensure that 'unsafe' food was not allowed for consumption, it suggested. On the Integrated Child Development Services in Tamil Nadu, the report said discrepancies in data of the total number of beneficiaries in TN ICDS, Poshan Tracker and Monthly Progress Reports led to inconsistencies in the data relied upon to monitor the implementation of the scheme. "Lack of basic infrastructure viz., separate kitchen, water facility, toilets, play area etc., was noticed in 77 sampled Anganwadi centres functioning in government-owned and rented buildings," it said. Shortage in enrolment of beneficiaries aged three to six years under Supplementary Nutrition Programme and related Pre-school Education activities, apart, non-testing of weaning food resulted in supply of weaning food short of nutrient and energy requirements to the beneficiaries, it said. The report noted that monitoring and review committee meetings were not conducted and there was a shortfall in supervision by ICDS functionaries. "A robust and user-friendly grievance redressal system was lacking in the state," the report said.
Mint
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- Mint
Ramkrishna Forgings share price tumbles 12% to fresh 52-week low. What's behind the fall in this BSE 500 stock?
Stock market today: Shares of Ramkrishna Forgings, an auto components and equipment manufacturer, cracked nearly 12% on Monday, April 28, to hit a fresh 52-week low after the company flagged discrepancies in its inventory. The company said that during the physical verification of inventory undertaken by the company for the financial year ended March 31, 2025 (FY25), which commenced from 6 April, 2025, it was observed that there have been discrepancies in certain cases of inventory. According to the internal estimates of Ramkrishna Forgings, there will likely be an adverse impact of 4%-5% on the net worth of the company, it said in an exchange filing over the weekend. In order to mitigate the adverse impact of the discrepancies in the inventory, the company's Audit Committee Meeting, on Saturday, April 26, approved the appointment of Independent External Agencies to conduct a joint fact-finding study for the discrepancy in inventory and reasons thereof. 'The decision to make the aforesaid appointment has been taken by the Audit Committee in the interest of ensuring transparency, accountability and adherence to the highest standards of Corporate Governance and to mitigate future recurrence of such nature,' Ramkrishna Forgings said in a filing. The promoters also affirmed their support for the company and said they are firmly committed to protecting and preserving the stakeholders' interests to uphold the highest standards of Corporate Governance. Further, in order to mitigate the potential adverse impact assessed upon conclusion of the factfinding study, the promoters are giving an assurance to the investors that they intend to fund the same through permissible instruments as permitted under applicable laws, the release said. Ramkrishna Forgings share price witnessed a gap-down start following the disclosures made by the company over the weekend. The BSE 500 stock, with a market capitalisation of 10,860 crore, opened 12% lower against its previous closing price at ₹ 579. This is also the 52-week low price that Ramkrishna Forgings shares hit today. As of 10.42 am, Ramkrishna Forgings stock recouped some losses and was trading at ₹ 600.15 apiece, down 8.55%, on the BSE. Anshul Jain, Head of Research at Lakshmishree Investments, said that after a buying climax, the stock has corrected 43% and is now forming an 8-week base between 850 and 600. However, the absence of institutional accumulation suggests a higher probability of a breakdown, he added. "A decisive breach below 600 could lead to a sharp fall towards 540. On the contrary, if a bear trap develops around 600, the stock could continue to consolidate within the 600–850 range for a few more weeks before a decisive move," Jain said. Meanwhile, Riyank Arora, Technical Analyst at Mehta Equities, said Ramkrishna Forgings is currently trading near ₹ 605, with a critical support level placed at ₹ 580. 'A decisive break below this support could trigger a sharp downward move, indicating growing bearish sentiment. Alternatively, the stock faces resistance at ₹ 630– ₹ 635; a sustained move above this zone could shift the short-term trend back in favour of the bulls. At present, the stock remains in a neutral to cautious territory, and traders should closely track the price action around these key levels,' Arora added.
Techday NZ
27-04-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Qualys launches Policy Audit to slash compliance audit costs
Qualys has announced an enhancement to its policy compliance solution with the launch of Policy Audit, aiming to streamline audit efficiency, reduce compliance costs and lower regulatory risks for organisations. The increase in regulatory requirements has presented significant challenges for enterprises; according to the Compliance Digital Transformation Report by Coalfire, nearly 70% of service organisations are subject to six or more regulatory frameworks. These requirements stretch operational resources and often result in higher costs. The complexity is further complicated by system misconfigurations which can lead to instances of non-compliance and potential regulatory penalties. Policy Audit introduces several automated features designed to address these challenges by reducing the reliance on manual processes. Sandeep Khanna, Chief Information Security Officer at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), commented on the integration of Policy Audit, stating: "Integrating Qualys Policy Audit into our workflows has transformed how we manage compliance. The seamless collaboration between teams, combined with real-time visibility across multiple mandates, has streamlined our operations and enabled proactive risk management. It's a game-changer for audit readiness." The Policy Audit solution works by automatically mapping collected evidence to major compliance frameworks such as PCI DSS 4.0, DORA, NIST, CMMC, and FedRAMP. It provides coverage across 450 technology types, includes over 1,000 out-of-the-box policies, and supports compliance with more than 90 frameworks. This is intended to foster continuous compliance and audit readiness while helping to mitigate the risk of audit failures. Among its features, the continuous audit readiness capability automates evidence collection and reduces the risk of human error, offering organisations a way to monitor audit gaps via real-time compliance posture dashboards. According to Qualys, the use of automated policy compliance can reduce audit failure rates by as much as 95%, allowing organisations to proactively address risks that could result in fines or penalties. Policy Audit also incorporates Qualys TruRisk, which maps compliance and data privacy risks automatically while identifying and prioritising critical misconfigurations according to business impact and asset and threat exposure. This functionality is intended to help organisations focus resources on the most significant vulnerabilities, and to understand the effect of these vulnerabilities across various regulatory mandates. With regard to operational workflow, Policy Audit includes automated IT Service Management (ITSM) workflows to connect silos between teams, ensuring necessary information moves efficiently to the relevant parties. Its integration with Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) tools aims to improve visibility and streamline both compliance tracking and risk management. Policy Audit features automated remediation workflows to accelerate the response to compliance gaps and reduce the window of exposure to breaches. On the reporting side, the solution enables organisations to generate multiple customisable reports from a single data collection process, utilising more than 90 pre-mapped mandates. These reports can be adapted for audiences such as executives and stakeholders, facilitating audits on demand and reportedly cutting audit costs by up to 50%. Sumedh Thakar, President and Chief Executive Officer of Qualys, commented: "Organisations are facing a growing number of mandates, and audit readiness is more critical than ever. Yet many struggle with complex regulations, limited staff, tight budgets, and manual processes—making compliance costly and error-prone." "Policy Audit transforms audits from a source of stress into a streamlined, automated process that empowers teams to do more while keeping the organisation continuously audit ready." In conjunction with Policy Audit, Qualys has introduced Audit Fix, an optional feature designed to help limit breach exposure. Audit Fix allows users to remediate audit findings before they escalate into compliance issues using a library of pre-defined scripts and policies, which can be integrated into continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. Customisable remediation workflows further contribute to continuous compliance and risk reduction. Qualys Policy Audit is expected to be available in the second quarter of the year.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Swimlane Speeds Up GRC Audits with New Compliance Audit Readiness Solution
Swimlane transforms chaos of manual spreadsheets to a consolidated multi-framework compliance view DENVER, April 23, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Swimlane, AI hyperautomation for the entire security organization, today announced the industry's first Compliance Audit Readiness (CAR) Solution, designed to streamline compliance management and accelerate audit readiness. Powered by the Swimlane Turbine AI Automation Platform and built on the Secure Controls Framework, CAR automates compliance control mapping, streamlines audit evidence gathering and provides real-time risk-based reporting. Compliance audits are complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive for governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) teams. 54% of organizations spend more than five hours each week on manual audit-related tasks. Gathering evidence across multiple frameworks often requires duplicated effort and fragmented workflows — with only 39% of the process automated on average. Additionally, the disconnect between GRC and security teams remains a major challenge, with 90% of organizations expressing concern about poor collaboration undermining audit readiness. "Compliance isn't just a GRC checkbox—it's the backbone of a resilient security strategy," said Michael Lyborg, CISO of Swimlane. "When security and GRC teams operate in isolation, gaps emerge, risks go unchecked and resources are misallocated. Swimlane's CAR solution demolishes these barriers, transforming compliance from a fragmented burden into a streamlined, strategic competitive advantage that strengthens security and accelerates audit readiness." Control Your Compliance Chaos Swimlane's CAR Solution cuts through compliance audit complexity with AI automation that centralizes multi-framework control management, eliminates manual bottlenecks, streamlines evidence collection and fosters seamless collaboration between GRC and security teams. With CAR, customers gain industry-leading capabilities, including: Compliance Controls Inventory: A unified controls catalog that pre-maps to over 30 compliance frameworks for centralized compliance management. Audit Evidence Management: Create, store and monitor compliance evidence from multiple sources and link them to controls in a flexible manner. Compliance Audit Readiness Dashboard: Track compliance progress against multiple frameworks (ISO 27001, GDPR or PCI DSS, etc) through the unified controls view. Audit-Ready Reporting: Generate customizable evidence request lists for auditor-ready reports in just a few clicks. Audit Readiness Extensions: Expand CAR with over 30 extensions that make it easy to augment the solution to the compliance frameworks that matter. Popular extensions include CAR for HIPAA, FedRAMP, NIST CSF and DORA. "Compliance audits shouldn't feel like a never-ending scavenger hunt," said Jack Rumsey, Head of GRC at Swimlane. "CAR allows us to reclaim significant resources, shifting our focus from reactive audit responses to proactive risk management. For GRC practitioners, this means we can dedicate our expertise to strategic initiatives, like enhancing our overall security posture and driving business value, instead of being bogged down in manual, repetitive tasks." Availability The Swimlane CAR solution and all extensions are now available in the Swimlane Marketplace. To request a demo, visit Key Resources Visit the Swimlane team at this year's RSA Conference April 28-May 1 at the San Francisco Moscone Center Booth #S-2157 To learn more about CAR, visit To download Swimlane's latest report, "GRC Chaos: The High Price of Audits and Non-Compliance", visit Register here for Swimlane's upcoming webinar "From Spreadsheet Chaos to GRC Control: Tips to Transform Compliance Audits" on May 15 at 12 PM ET. Explore CAR in the Swimlane Marketplace. About Swimlane At Swimlane, we believe the convergence of agentic AI and automation can solve the most challenging security, compliance and IT/OT operations problems. With Swimlane, enterprises and MSSPs benefit from the world's first and only hyperautomation platform for every security function. Only Swimlane gives you the scale and flexibility to build your own hyperautomation applications to unify security teams, tools and telemetry ensuring today's SecOps are always a step ahead of tomorrow's threats. Learn more: Request a Demo: View source version on Contacts Media Contacts Allison Knightswimlane@ 806-570-9819 Sign in to access your portfolio
