International equity investment managers long complained to me that the foreign exchange arrangements my public pension clients entered into with their custodians, which forced external money managers to settle such transactions with the custodian resulted in poor execution and diminished international equity performance.

FORBES: Pensions Demand Return of Global Custodian Bank Overcharges

The external auditor uses inquiry and actual testing of transactions to develop a formal opinion on the financial statements.

FORBES: Crisis? What Crisis? Don't Blame The Accounting