Ms McGuinness will launch a public consultation after the summer looking at company audit committees, the outside auditors who sign off on financial figures companies publish and the regulators who supervise them.
It will examine whether responsibilities of company board members to provide accurate financial reports are defined clearly enough.
The consultation will reflect on how to improve the role of company audit committees and whether they should be mandatory.
Ms McGuinness said supervisors for auditors across the EU had found problems with internal quality control systems. They also found a lack of or inappropriate monitoring of high-risk audited entities and insufficient audit evidence and documentation, she added.