Financial reporting: to be forgotten in a fragmenting world?
On 23 June, Andreas Barckow, Chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), delivered a keynote at the IFRS Foundation Conference 2025, sounding a warning bell on the importance of joined-up financial reporting in uncertain times. While the IFRS is celebrating ongoing progress, the impact of rising geopolitical tensions on the financial reporting world cannot be ignored.
Barckow’s speech confronted a central challenge: how will global financial reporting standards hold up in a world increasingly shaped by geopolitical fragmentation? While some jurisdictions push for carve-outs and tailoring, Barckow stressed that consistency is more than just a technical ideal. Fragmentation undermines investor confidence, reduces comparability, and raises the cost of capital. Even well-meant deviations can damage trust.
The IASB’s response is speed, pragmatism and clarity. It has moved quickly to amend IFRS 9 for sustainable finance and renewable energy contracts. It rolled out IFRS 19 to lower costs for group entities. And it is preparing a suite of climate-risk examples to help companies apply existing standards.
High-quality global standards, when consistently applied and digitally enabled, remain critical to comparability, investor trust and market efficiency. In a fragmented world, comparable digital reporting is a vital anchor to support international investment and clear supervision.
Read the full keynote on the IFRS Foundation website here.
