There's nothing unusual about these spectacular auditing failures. KPMG signed off on the books of HBOS multiple times in the years before the bank's bad loans eventually blew it apart in 2008. The auditor was even invited to investigate allegations of excessive risk-taking from an internal HBOS whistleblower, Paul Moore. It dismissed them. Indeed, all the UK's big banks were thoroughly audited before their balance sheets tore like tissue paper before a tsunami during the 2008-09 financial crisis.