RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORENSIC ACCOUNTANTS’ COMPETENCES AND AUDIT EXPECTATION GAP:EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS

Abstract

Failure of statutory Auditor in meeting the reasonable expectation of users of accounting information for decision making in banking industry despite the clean report issued ; hence it has fuelled the need for the use of forensic accounting services in order to narrowing the audit expectation gap that statutory auditors default in it. The purpose of the study was to examine how forensic Accountants’ competences can narrow audit expectation gap among Nigeria Money Deposit Bank .The objectives of the study was to determine the relationship between expertise competence, mindset competence, professional skepticism competence, responsibility competence and forensic information technology competence of forensic Accountants among Nigeria Money Deposit Bank. A census was carried out in twenty one Nigeria Money Deposit Banks which had operating licenses from the Central bank of Nigeria. Questionnaires were used to collect the data. The data were analyzed using SPSS. Factor analysis was used to retain the indicators which had a factor loading of above 0.4 for further study. The reliability of the data gathered from the field was measured using the cronbach's Alpha to give an unbiased estimate of the data generalizability. Descriptive statistics mainly percentages and frequency distribution were used for data presentation. Inferential statistics used were correlation and multiple regression analysis to test the relationship between the variables, also used t-test and F-test for that purpose The findings revealed that there was strong negative linear relationship between the Forensic Accountants' competences and audit expectation gap. It Implies that increase in forensic Accountants' competences reduce audit expectation gap. The study thus concluded that by applying the forensic accounting techniques in banks auditing through forensic accountants' competences improve the public confidence on bank's financial report. The study gives recommendations that application of forensic Accountants' competences proactively in bank auditing foster narrowing audit expectation gap in Banks.