Audit

Wells Fargo, which has been told by the Fed that it needs to improve its governance and controls, on Thursday received an important thumbs-up from its outside auditor and also named the four senior directors who will retire next month.

The move aims to ease the compliance and audit processes for credit unions by increaing access to remote services.

Paulette Mullings Bradnock is the first woman to hold the title of chief auditor at the venerable bank.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey are seeking information about KPMG to determine if it lived up to its professional obligations when it decided not to disclose fake accounts at Wells Fargo.

The auditing giant has faced heavy criticism for failing to uncover wrongdoing at Wells. But the San Francisco megabank said Wednesday that it wants to maintain a relationship that goes back decades.

A number of small banks have disclosed material weaknesses in loan-loss accounting and other procedures. Reasons vary, but a common thread appears to be that accounting firms are facing pressure to beef up their scrutiny of internal controls in financial services.

KPMG said Webster did not properly document a change in the way it calculates its provision for loan losses. The bank does not expect to restate its results or incur any meaningful increase in costs because of the problem.

The Share Insurance Fund, Operating Fund and others all received clean audits for 2016.