Greece's central banker to head ECB's audit committee

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's central bank Chief Yannis Stournaras will succeed Ewald Nowotny as head of the European Central Bank's audit committee, the Bank of Greece said on Friday.

Stournaras has been a member of the ECB's audit committee since September 2018. Nowotny was Austria's central bank governor, succeeded by Robert Holzmann in September last year.

The audit committee has been set up by the ECB's Governing Council to strengthen the layers of control at the monetary authority and enhance corporate governance of the ECB and the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) covering central banking and banking supervisory functions.

As part of its responsibilities, the audit committee reviews the ECB's annual financial statements prior to their approval by the Governing Council.

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; Editing by Ros Russell)