THE EFFECT OF EXTERNAL AUDITING EXPENDITURE ON THE PROFITABILITY OF NIGERIAN BANKS: A STUDY OF FIRST BANK (2002-2016)

ABSTRACT

The research titled “Effect of external auditing expenditure on the profitability of Nigeria Banks” highlights the relevance of external auditing in improving performance of Nigerian banks. The cardinal objective of this study is to ascertain the effect of external auditing expenditure on the profitability of Nigerian banks. The study aims at achieving the following specific objectives which includes: ascertaining the effect of external audit expenditures on profit after tax of Nigerian banks and examining the effect of external audit expenditure on return on shareholders' funds of Nigerian banks. The study adopted the ex-post facto research design. The empirical research used secondary data sourced from First Bank of Nigeria annual reports and statistical bulletins of the Central Bank Nigeria. The time series for the study covered a period of 2002 to 2016. Simple regression model was employed for the study while the hypotheses formulated were tested using version 20 of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. The result of the study show that external auditing expenditure has negative and non-significant effect on the profit after of commercial banks in Nigeria and external auditing expenditure has negative and non-significant effect on the return on shareholder funds of commercial banks in Nigeria. This work recommend that auditors should maintain a degree of independence to guarantee quality assurance that could provide the much needed protection of depositors finds and other shareholders interest in the bank.. We recommend also that further research should be carried out on this topic with an enlarged scope capturing more than one commercial bank in Nigeria.