Outcomes from Recent Capital Markets Advisory Committee Meeting

The IASB has released a summary of the Capital Markets Advisory Committee (CMAC) meeting which was held in London on 12 October 2011. The CMAC was previously known as the Analyst Representative Group (ARG) and is a group of professional financial analysts who regularly meet with members of the IASB to provide the views of professional investors on financial reporting issues.

The topics discussed at the meeting included:

- XBRL. The CMAC considered the IFRS taxonomy, custom tags and the Thomson Reuters taxonomy model

- Risk free rate of return. There was a general view among the participants that the determination of the risk free rate was not the responsibility of the IASB, discussion also included when 'synthesised' risk free rates may be appropriate (e.g. entities operating in the Eurozone or multi-nationals)

- Impairment of financial instruments. The CMAC considered the IASB's current impairment model ('three bucket approach') and considered matters such as 'day one losses', information needs, and the use of expected values

- Transition disclosures. The CMAC discussed disclosures made when an IFRS is issued but is not yet mandatory, a preference for IFRS 1 type disclosures when a new standard is applied for the first time, and related matters

- Other. The CMAC discussed the usefulness of project-specific case studies for accounting proposals, and the IASB's agenda consultation.