India's NFRA to publish inspection reports on 10 firms including KPMG

India’s audit regulator is finalising inspection reports for 10 major audit firms, with officials saying the reports will be issued “by the end of the current financial year.” The list of firms named in reporting includes global networks KPMG, EY, Deloitte and PwC, plus Grant Thornton and BDO; officials and industry notices put the publication window as by March 31, with several outlets specifying March 31, 2026.

In its latest newsletter the regulator said “the inspections for the year 2024 were embarked upon in March 2025 and that five inspection teams initiated the current year's inspection cycle covering 10 audit firms. ... The inspections, launched in March 2025, cover firm-wide Standard on Quality Control compliance and 42 audit engagements, including those of major audit firms.” Those inspection teams examined SQC compliance across firms and sampled 42 individual engagements as part of the cycle.

The National Financial Reporting Authority was established to oversee audit quality; “The regulator was set up in October 2018 under the companies law,” and “Since starting operations, the watchdog has issued 12 inspection reports of various audit firms.” NFRA’s move to publish a new set of reports marks a deliberate step up in public scrutiny after prior, smaller rounds of oversight.

Preliminary accounts circulated with the inspection work say some firms have strengthened record keeping and tightened controls over non-audit services since earlier reviews, but they “still have some ground to cover on certain other aspects of audit independence.” A synopsis of the inspections summarised the round this way: “Inspections focus on audit quality and governance. Some firms show improvement in processes. However, areas like audit independence still need attention.”

The firms in this sweep are consequential: “Since the firms covered in the latest round together audit about two-thirds of India's top 500 listed companies, any positive course correction by them would have a salutary impact on the country's audit ecosystem, potentially minimising chances of large corporate frauds.” That concentration means NFRA’s findings are likely to influence audit practice across a large slice of the market rather than being confined to isolated engagements.

NFRA’s inspections inspected specific dimensions of firm practice, including governance frameworks, “effectiveness of internal control over audit quality” and the “system of assessment and identification of audit risks.” The regulator has signalled it will flag any deficiencies for remedial steps and to “encourage them to follow global best practices.” Officials cautioned that the reports are being finalised and have not yet been published; “The reports would be issued this fiscal ending March 31, they added.”

Regulatory pressure is already explicit: the watchdog “is taking action against auditors for auditing lapses,” a phrase used in official summaries of NFRA’s posture. When the reports appear before the fiscal year end, they will give the regulator a public baseline of quality-control shortfalls and improvements across firms that audit a dominant portion of listed-company India.