Banking Supervisors & Government Regulators

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Security Regulators and Exchanges

The aim of all securities regulators is to facilitate the exchange of financial data among issuers, markets and investors. Many analysts and investors receive information in multiple formats and they retype manually this information to facilitate the analysis and comparison of data with the corresponding costs and risks of errors. The standardization of data using open standards can optimize this situation and this was the reason why the CNMV (Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores), the Spanish securities markets regulator, decided to implement XBRL in the regulatory reporting and to disseminate the XBRL reports through the CNMV website.
In 2005, the CNMV started to receive financial statements in XBRL format from issuers of listed securities. In a first step, the XBRL reports were posted in the CNMV website as they were received, without any logical reorganization of the reports. Recently, with more than 15000 reports published, the CNMV understood that a tool was needed to facilitate the viewing and retrieval of the XBRL reports. Since December 2007, the CNMV offers in its website an XBRL report viewer that also includes report searching and downloading features.

The Financial Services Agency of Japan (JFSA) launched new EDINET (Electronic Disclosure for Investors’ NETwork) system on 17 March 2008.

EDINET is an electronic corporate disclosure system under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, and all listed or major fund-raising companies (including investment funds) in Japan are required to file their disclosure documents using the system. The corporate disclosure documents submitted by them are publicly available on the Internet through EDINET.

All filers, excluding foreign filers, are mandated to submit in XBRL format the financial statements included in their annual reports, semi-annual reports, quarterly reports and securities registration statements for fiscal years starting in or after April 2008. Quarterly reports for the 1st fiscal quarter ending June 2008 will be the first filing in XBRL format. After that, the financial information of approximately 5,000 companies and 3,000 investment funds will be filed and available for public in XBRL format through EDINET. It will be one of the most advanced XBRL adopted electronic disclosure system in the world.

In this session, overview of EDINET system and lessons learned from the implementation project will be presented.
 

11:00am - 12:30pm

and

1:30pm - 3:30pm

Companies Regulators Showcase

In December 2007 DCCA (Danish Commerce and Companies Agency)
implemented an XBRL based system, which makes it possible for them to
receive a full annual report for small and medium sized companies in
XBRL format. They have also included data to the Danish tax authorities
and Statistics Denmark, so that companies just have to send data to
DCCA, one time a year, and then they split the instant and transmit
data to the other relevant public agencies. They are planning to
implement this with larger listed companies based on the IASB's
taxonomy. The unique thing about their system is it is not based on a
standard formula (as for instance the one use by the SEC and the
Spanish Bank). Therefore, it is possible with the XBRL system to make
and present the same annual reports in the XBRL solution as it is on
paper today. This session will address why XBRL was used and what it is
expected to achieve, background on the project, the challenges and
opportunities, key partners, a live presentation on the solution and
the next steps.

XBRL the Swedish Way -- Our speakers will guide you through the Swedish implementation of electronic Annual Reports based upon XBRL. In 2006 the Swedish Companies Registration Office implemented the first version of electronic Annual Reports based upon XBRL. Since then a lot of things have happened and a lot of lessons have been learned. The Swedish way of implementing electronic Annual Accounts is based upon independent self interest from the various users. In order to create a demand and interest to use electronic Annual Reports, we need to deliver added values to Auditors, Accountants, Company representatives etc. in favour of using legislation to force them. We will describe the services that are in place as well as the services that are planned in order to make electronic reporting the number one choice. At the end we will also give you some facts and figures of the pitfalls as well as some information from the recent report of the benefits for the society of using XBRL in Sweden.

The Italian Roadmap to XBRL electronic filing -- From the presentation the attendees will have a fresh overview over the Italian path to XBRL. This specific topic will highlight the relevant steps and the networking among the different actors allowing a successful adoption of XBRL in Italy. Focus will be set on the formation of the Italian association for XBRL and the interaction activated with the Italian legislative body for a suitable preparation of Terms and References for the XBRL practical adoption. The presentation will also describe a specific strategy adopted for activating the cooperation among the key partners in the filing process: Accountants, Software Developers and the Italian Business Registers.

Since April 2007, Belgian non-financial companies use XBRL for the drawing up of their individual annual accounts to be filed with the National Bank (Central Balance Sheet Office - CBSO) in the form of XBRL-instance documents. The project was a success: the CBSO received in 2007 about 260.000 annual accounts in XBRL format, representing 85% of all the annual accounts filed. In March 2008, the project has been extended to the annual accounts of the not-for-profit sector. The presentation wil decribe the steps of the project, the lessons learned during the implementation and the next steps foreseen inside and outside the National Bank. The presentation will end with a live demo of the application.

Ancient China and Innovative XBRL

This session will review the development of XBRL in China over the past four years. It will cover the experiences gained from the Shanghai Stock Exchange's use of XBRL. The next steps such as; standardizing the disclosure of fund information by the use of XBRL, advancing the application of XBRL in IPOs and refinancing activities, the introduction of digital signatures and further promoting the establishment of a China jurisdiction will be addressed.

XBRL Adoption in Singapore

The Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) Singapore, the national regulator of business entities and public accountants, has launched FS Manager, a new online system which would enable Singapore companies to prepare and file their financial statements in XBRL format with effect from 1 November 2007.

The ACRA taxonomy is based on the premise that no company should tag any data or extend any taxonomy and that industry specific data should be in the single taxonomy if important. ACRA taxonomy achieves this by relying on the self-extending taxonomy concept that allows for core data that is common to most entities and of interest to most users to be captured specifically and for other data to be captured under a flexible classification that will allow for efficient manual extraction.

The unique value proposition of FS Manager is more than just a tool for companies to prepare their financial statements in XBRL format for filing purposes to ACRA, it is in itself a financial statements preparation tool which offers great value to small Singapore companies in preparing their financial statements. FS Manager also facilitates Singapore companies in preparing their financial statements in Portable Document Format.

With XBRL adoption in Singapore, ACRA seeks to facilitate a ‘one-stop’ portal for businesses - In time, it may be possible for financial statements to be filed only once with a central filing Government agency for transfers to other regulatory agencies with similar filing arrangements. Currently, corporate financial statements filed in XBRL format are transferred to the Singapore tax authority.

Going forward, ACRA seeks to harness the potential of XBRL to make available business information to the public as part of ACRA’s move towards a more transparent and a better informed business environment.

This session will cover the following topics:

• The strategic goals that ACRA seeks to achieve with XBRL implementation in Singapore;
• Background of the ACRA XBRL Project - Key Issues and timelines;
• Overview of FS Manager and the ACRA Taxonomy; and
• Key learning points of XBRL implementation in Singapore and the future challenges.