Assessment of the effectiveness of internal controls employed by Equity Bank Uganda Limited

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the internal controls employed in Equity bank Uganda limited. The research objectives were; 1) To determine the effect of internal controls on performance of equity bank Uganda limited, 2) To determine the effect internal controls on fraud control in equity bank Uganda limited, 3) To determine the relationship between fraud control and performance of equity bank Uganda limited, 4) To establish the mediating effect of fraud control in the relationship between internal control and performance of equity bank Uganda limited. The study applied both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from a sample size of 108 bank employees and customers who were walking in during the process of data collection. Findings revealed that there is a positive significant correlation between internal controls and performance at Equity bank Uganda limited (r=.769** and p=.000). Furthermore, results reveal a positive significant correlation between internal controls and fraud control at Equity bank Uganda limited (r=.911** and p=.000). There was also positive significant correlation between fraud control and performance at Equity bank Uganda limited (r=.803** and p=.000). Results on establishing the mediating effect of fraud control in the relationship between internal control and performance of equity bank Uganda, findings revealed that internal control has no significant effect on performance of equity bank in presence of mediator variable which is fraud control with p>0.05 at 95% level of significance. The model further indicates that internal control cause only 3.3% variation in performance of equity bank in presence of a mediator fraud control. However, in absence of a mediator variable, internal control has a positive significant effect on the performance of equity bank where p<0.05 and Rsq being .4819 meaning that internal control causes a variation of 48.2% in performance of equity bank limited in absence of fraud control. Fraud control has a significant effect on performance of equity bank and the total effect of internal control on fraud control is significant. It can be concluded that fraud control overshadows the effect of internal control on performance of equity bank. Therefore, it is recommended that the bank should employ either fraud control or internal controls to promote performance but not all at once.