About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

GAO-03-525R 1 (2003-03-14)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaamdx0001 and id is 1 raw text is: I Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 March 14, 2003 Louise L. Roseman, Director Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Subject: Federal Reserve Banks: Areas for Improvement in Computer Controls Dear Ms. Roseman: In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the financial statements of the U.S. government,1 we audited and reported on the Schedules of Federal Debt Managed by the Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD) for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2002 and 2001.' As part of these audits, we performed a review of the general and application computer controls over key financial systems maintained and operated by the Federal Reserve Banks (FRBs) on behalf of the Department of the Treasury's BPD. Many of the FRBs perform fiscal agent services on behalf of the U.S. government, including BPD. The debt-related services primarily consist of issuing, servicing, and redeeming Treasury securities and processing secondary market securities transfers. In fiscal year 2002, the FRBs issued about $3.7 trillion in federal debt securities to the public, redeemed about $3.5 trillion of debt held by the public, and processed about $139 billion in interest payments on debt held by the public. FRB data centers maintain and operate key BPD financial applications and an array of financial and information systems to process and reconcile monies disbursed and collected on behalf of BPD. We use a risk-based, rotation approach for testing general and application computer controls. Each significant data center and key application is subjected every three years to a full-scope review that includes testing in all the computer control areas defined in our Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual. Areas considered to be of higher risk are subject to more frequent review. We performed our work at certain FRBs from May 2002 through October 2002. Our work was performed in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing 131 U.S.C. 331(e) (2000). 'U.S. General Accounting Office, Financial Audit: Bureau of the Public Debt's Fiscal Years 2002 and 2001 Schedules of Federal Debt, GAO-03-199 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1, 2002). 3U.S. General Accounting Office, Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual, GAO/AIMD- 12.19.6 (Washington, D.C.: January 1999). GAO-03-525R Computer Controls at FRBs Page 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most