##mble in responding to incoming data and the evolving outlook. maintaining the trust and confidence of the public is essential to our work. last month, the federal reserve finalized a comprehensive set of new ethics rules to substantially strengthen the investment restrictions for senior federal reserve officials. these new rules will guard against even the appearance of any conflict of interest. they are tough and best in class in government, here and around the world. we understand that our actions affect communities, families, and businesses across the country. everything we do is in service to our public mission. we at the federal reserve will do everything we can to achieve our maximum - employment and price - stability goals. thank you. i am happy to take your questions. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches

of internal auditors'professional standards focus on adding value by meeting the needs of management and the board. internal auditors add value by being effective independent assessors of the quality of the internal control framework and processes. auditors lose their independence when they perform management consulting roles for which they later will have to render an opinion. internal audit is one of the few corporate functions that has both the ability and the responsibility to look across all of the management silos within the corporation and make sure that the system of internal controls has no gaps and that the control framework is continually reviewed to keep up with corporate strategic initiatives, reorganizations, and process changes. when an auditor becomes part of management, the independent view is lost. external audit let's turn to the topic of quality assurance in the external audit process. as supervisors, we must take steps to encourage a high standard of professionalism among auditors. in some cases, this may mean undertaking an enforcement action against an accountant. the agencies are finalizing the accountant debarment rule, which will be one more tool we can use to correct errant behavior. however, before we do that, we should look at the lessons learned from some recent audit failures. the typical fact pattern in these failures indicates that some auditors are focusing on the form rather than the substance of transactions when making critical audit judgments. moreover, when looking at assurance services, such as the fdicia 112 auditor attestations, some auditors have a tendency to gloss over internal control deficiencies or simply ignore significant control deficiencies because they are " immaterial. " it is not meaningful for auditors to apply a financial statement concept of materiality to an attestation engagement on internal controls. from a supervisory perspective, we would consider the existence of a series of such immaterial deficiencies to be useful information in assessing the quality of the internal and external audit process. we need to change this mindset in the auditing community. some of this can be done through dialogue with the american institute of certified public accountants and the public company accounting oversight board, which we are doing. once auditors start to routinely report known deficiencies in internal controls, we should begin to eliminate the gap between what we expect an audit or attestation engagement to include and actual services provided by auditors. however, if we continue to find significant internal control deficiencies in safety and soundness examinations that the auditor knows about but fails to disclose, because they are judged to be