Ernst & Young to consult for BCEL bank

Ernst & Young to consult for BCEL bank

Ernst & Young Lao Limited held a contract signing ceremony with Banque pour le Commerce Exterieur Lao (BCEL) in Vientiane on Wednesday for the Consulting Project on IFRS Conversion and IA transformation.

Country Managing Partner of Ernst & Young Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Mr Tran Dinh Cuong, gave the opening speech at the signing ceremony as follows.

Firstly, allow me to have a quick introduction. It is my great pleasure to attend today's contract signing ceremony for the Project “Internal Audit Transformation” and “Technical Guidance in the Preparation of IFRS-based Financial Statements and Capacity Building for IFRS Manual Conversion Process” for BCEL Public.

Joining me are our consultants from EY Vietnam and EY Lao offices who will work closely with the bank in this project.

Thanks to enormous and great efforts put in by both teams from BCEL Public and Ernst & Young, I am glad that we have come to the signing of this project.

It is obviously one of the largest projects of Ernst & Young in Laos and one of the few significant banking consulting projects that I believe will shape the transformation of the banking industry in Laos in the coming time.

On this occasion, on behalf of Ernst & Young Management, I would like to express our sincere thanks to the Board of Directors and Board of Management of BCEL Public, who have strongly endorsed this project.

The world financial sector has experienced significant difficulties in recent years, resulting in a lot of challenges for banks and the need for corporate governance transformation which embraces the transformation of risk management, internal auditing and financial reporting.

The benefits of this transformation process include more transparency in financial reporting, better corporate governance and higher competitiveness of those banks who are committed to this journey.

Therefore, I would like to congratulate BCEL Public on making this landmark project happen, since it is perfectly in line with what has become the most popular trend amongst commercial banks around the region and the world.

Within the scope of this project, Ernst & Young will assist BCEL Public in some major components of corporate governance transformation as follows:

i. Preparing IFRS based financial statements and capacity building for the IFRS manual conversion process, which is the first phase of the whole IFRS conversion process.

ii. Reviewing the current internal audit strategy as well as the current state of internal control environment, making recommendations thereon and building the international audit manual as well as the internal audit charter for BCEL Public.

Globally and particularly in the Asia Pacific region, Ernst & Young has undertaken similar consulting work for banks in Vietnam, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, etc.

We have also worked with central banks in these countries to develop roadmaps and plans to guide commercial banks in the process of transformation, which includes Internal Audit Transformation and IFRS Conversion Preparation.

We will certainly leverage such experience to assist BCEL Public to successfully implement this project.

And we strongly believe that the results of these projects will help BCEL Public strengthen its position in the local banking market and expand its success to the international financial market.

We understand the project implementation is highly challenging, in terms of deliverables, timeline and resources. As such, we would appreciate it if the management of BCEL Public will continue to provide all necessary support and resources for us so that we can meet and even exceed your expectations and requirements.

Last but not least, today all of us are witnessing the launch of one of the most important projects of BCEL Public in its transformation process, which entails a positive trend in the Lao financial services market. On behalf of the leaders of Ernst & Young, once again, we would like to emphasise our strong commitment to successfully deliver this engagement and wish that our project will be a great success.

vientiane times