Speakers at SEC roundtable hail broader use of XBRL in financial reporting

16 June 2006

A range of speakers at a US SEC roundtable on the benefits and uses of XBRL praised the SEC’s proposals to make greater use of the Internet in informing investors. 

The introduction of XBRL for company financial reporting would increase the accuracy of financial data, make it easier to analyse and improve its timeliness, providing significant benefits for investors, participants said. 

The roundtable organised by the Securities and Exchange Commission on 12 June in Washington was the first in a series which the SEC is holding to discuss how XBRL will help provide investors and analysts with better financial information about companies and funds.  The event focussed on  means of improving the quality of mutual fund disclosures, what investors and analysts are looking for from XBRL, how to accelerate the use of new software and what the SEC can do to help companies take maximum benefit from XBRL. 

“The SEC’s eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) initiative is designed to help put investors in the driver’s seat by facilitating automated search, retrieval and analysis of tagged data.  By enabling investors and others to manipulate data, to perform analysis and comparisons, and to drill down deeper into layers of information, interactive data can truly increase the value of information made available to the public,” Paul Schott Stevens,   President and Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Company Institute said.  “XBRL data tagging also will enable the Commission to review filings more efficiently.”

Christopher Whalen, Managing Director of Institutional Risk Analytics, said: Interactive data enables analysis to move beyond point in time pricing to revealing the underlying ‘safety and soundness’ factors affecting equity and debt investments.  SEC-sourced interactive data places content equally in the hands of individual and professional investors, and allows low-cost use of powerful database tools.” 

The SEC has published a range of information on the roundtable at http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl.htm.  This includes:

Archived Video Webcast:  http://www.connectlive.com/events/secxbrl/

List of participants and links to some statements:  http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl/xbrlround-parts.htm

Agenda:  http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl/xbrlroundagenda.htm, 

as well as a variety of other background. 

A full transcript of the event is at http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl/xbrltranscript0606.txt.

Announced by:

Peter Calvert

XBRL International

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