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In 2001, the leadership of the old IASC, with the support by Europe, Japan, the US and the wider world gave up on the idea of using international standards as simply a reference for domestic standards and instead set out a bold vision whereby all countries of the world would adopt verbatim the same set of international standards, known as International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS. In other words, à la carte was out and replaced with sophisticated cuisine of the highest order that takes the best ingredients from around the world. The part-time IASC was replaced with a full-time and well-resourced IASB, and the rest is history.
The reality is that, given the opportunity, every IFRS jurisdiction would like to choose from the à la carte menu; to tweak the IFRS standards to better reflect local preferences or accounting traditions within their own jurisdiction—a form of nostalgia accounting.
Everyone must commit themselves to adopt the same, single set of high quality standards. Some have argued that the concept of a single set of global accounting standards can be approached in an informal way by the dominant economies working together to eliminate differences in their respective standards. This is an appealing concept for many. After all, who wouldn’t want the benefits of global standards while maintaining national GAAP?
Unfortunately, this is a false premise. The IASB and the FASB’s decade-long convergence programme brought the practical difficulties of expecting two or more independent boards to independently come up with the same answer. If the IASB and the FASB could not come up with the same standards for the netting of derivative contracts, and has struggled to find a common loan loss impairment model, despite years of sitting around the same board table, then what chance is there for multiple boards to independently reach the same outcome?
The IFRS model of a single set of global accounting standards has been a remarkable success.
The decision by the European Union to undertake a wholesale adoption from 2005 gave IFRS credibility and critical mass, while important decisions in this and other regions has seen the number of IFRS jurisdictions continue to swell. For example, just in the past five years alone, over 25 countries have joined the IFRS family by requiring IFRS for all or most listed companies. These include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Israel, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan and Ukraine.
As the first Chairman of the IASC said, 25 years is not a long time in the history of a great profession. Against this backdrop, it is even more remarkable what has been achieved in the short time since the IASB began its work in 2001.
It is reassuring that nobody has opposed the G20’s objective, and the governments of the G20 have recently repeated their commitment to the goal of a single set of high quality accounting standards. But there are some voices in favour of a sort of decentralised process by which national regulators would work together with a view to either converge towards international standards, or not, according to so-called national specificities and interests. They would then choose whether or not to adapt their national standards accordingly. This would be a most regrettable step backwards.
I strongly believe that we must all remain focused on the ultimate goal of a single set of high quality global accounting standards, and believe ASAF is the place where a truly international dialogue must help us to reach this objective. I also believe that Japan can play a major role in the speeding up of this dynamic, thanks to Japan’s continued leadership.