For the duties of independence, integrity and objectivity attributed to it by law, as well as the public interest duties that such a function covers, the external auditor is the element that has the greatest influence on the external credibility of the financial statements, to which, naturally, the legal certification of the accounts contributes.
Finally, it is the supervisor’s responsibility, as I said when I took office in 2010, “to apply the principle of systematic doubt [...] to carry out a role that is countercyclical”. This implies a “check [...] on the soundness of its fundamentals, its future risks and the way these are recorded on the supervised institution’s balance sheet”6.