Voima to release audit reports by Bureau Veritas

New audit partner

Voima has started a new gold audit partnership with Bureau Veritas. The long-standing French certification company will supersede PricewaterhouseCoopers as the Customer gold holdings auditing partner of Voima.

Voima's partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers was discontinued at the end of March 2022, as a result of personnel change in PwC Finland. Voima's PwC partner Jari Viljanen chose to move on from the company, and a successor was not found within PwC to take up his work.

Voima's Head of Security, Samuli Keränen, comments on the new partnership as follows:

Since 2019, we have conducted audits on the Customer gold holdings with PricewaterhouseCoopers. During 2022, we looked into several different auditing standards, such as ISAE 3000, and possibilities to upgrade the Customer gold holdings auditing procedure. Unfortunately, a new partner was not found as quickly as we would have liked to. Finally, we found an adequate reporting method with Bureau Veritas, who are a well-established company, conducting audits globally on the whole supply chain of gold. With Bureau Veritas, we now plan to provide this independent audit report on the Customer gold holdings quarterly. One of the benefits of the new auditing procedure and reporting structure is that this new cooperation brings more transparency to the Customers about their assets.

Samuli Keränen

The new gold audits provided by Bureau Veritas will be conducted quarterly, and the audit scope is more detailed compared to the one with PwC. The numbers of Voima's accounting system are reconciled with the vaulted gold products and the gold administered on partner metal accounts on behalf of the Customers. In addition, random checks are conducted in order to verify that the bars are of an appropriate weight and appearance.

The first gold audit was carried out in November 2022, and the next one is scheduled for March 2023.

The November report can be read here.