Top Audit Firm Defends Giving Clean Bill of Health to SVB, Signature Bank Weeks Before Failure
Audit giant KPMG is standing by its audits of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, which collapsed when customers rushed to withdraw their savings in panic-fueled bank runs.
The two banks failed not long after their respective annual reports were certified by KPMG, one of the so-called “Big Four” accounting firms, a list that also includes Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Paul Knopp, CEO of KPMG’s U.S. operations, defended the firm’s audit work on SVB and Signature in an interview with Financial Times during a Tuesday event at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business.
He pointed to “market-driven events” and “unpredictable” customer reactions to such events as examples of factors behind bank failures that audit work is powerless to address….