CII protests RBI rules on auditors, says will cause 'enormous difficulties'

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) rules changing auditors throw up "enormous operational difficulties" and are disruptive for banks and non-banks, said the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in a statement.

The central bank, on April 27, asked banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFC), excluding those who don’t take deposits and have below Rs 1,000-crore asset base, to immediately bring in new auditors in case the firm has completed three years of audit of a bank or NBFC. NBFCs may do the change from the second half of the year.

Banks and NBFCs having asset size of Rs 15,000 crore or more were asked to appoint joint auditors. Crucially, a retrospective applicability of the extended eligibility criteria for the auditors, including those