THE ROLE AND SCOPE OF EXTERNAL AUDITING IN FRAUD DETECTION IN THE BANKING SECTOR: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

The banking sector, as the dominant channel of financial intermediation, has systemic importance for the efficient and stable financial and economic system as a whole. Contemporary academic and professional literature recognises external auditing as an important mechanism for enhancing the credibility of financial reporting and detecting financial fraud in the banking sector. Building on this theoretical framework, this paper applies a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications with the aim of the systematisation and critical examination of the role and scope of external auditing in combating fraud in banks. The analysis relies on a corpus of 130 scholarly articles indexed in the Scopus database, published in the period between 1992 and 2025, and encompasses an examination of publication dynamics, thematic clusters, collaboration networks and dominant research trends. The results indicate a continuous and pronounced growth in scholarly interest in this field, with a predominance of topics related to fraud detection, audit quality and corporate governance. At the same time, research addressing the preventive role of auditing, the implementation of digital and analytical technologies, and studies focusing on less developed economies remains relatively underrepresented, highlighting gaps in the available literature and suggesting potential avenues for future research. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the evolution of the scientific discourse on external auditing and provides a foundation for further theoretical and empirical advancement of research in this area.