Six years on, NFRA remains key to restoring trust in financial reporting

The primary objective of the NFRA has been to strengthen the financial ecosystem and ensure the credibility of financial statements

Next week will mark six years since the National Financial Regulatory Authority (NFRA) was constituted — a long enough period for it to find its feet, but not sufficient for institutional sclerosis to set in.

But first, it is worth recalling the genesis of NFRA. It lay in the Satyam Computer Systems fraud — one of the biggest in India.  Satyam’s founder and chairman, B Ramalinga Raju, confessed to manipulating the company’s accounts over several years. He admitted to inflating the company’s cash and bank balances, understating liabilities, and overstating debtors’ positions. The loss of credibility in the