The Financial Services Authority has decided against
using extensible business reporting language (XBRL) for companies
to file their regulatory returns on the grounds of
cost.
FSA IS director Darryl Salmons said, "We were originally
thinking that XBRL was the way to go. Then we did a detailed review
of what firms were using and of XBRL itself.
"We assessed the technical options and then carried out a number
of fact-finding discussions with other regulators. One of the
messages coming back was the cost of XBRL in the UK."
XBRL is a variant of the messaging language XML that enables
huge volumes of financial data to be interrogated swiftly.
The FSA's decision to abandon XBRL for XML means that UK
regulators do not have to commit to backing XBRL for the
foreseeable future.
The financial services regulator had planned to use XBRL as the
language for its integrated regulatory reporting (IRR) programme.
Every financial services company in the UK has to electronically
file regulatory information using the FSA's IRR systems.
Salmons said, "XBRL was not the best technological fit for the
firms that we regulated. XML is being used in our other systems so
it could be used to achieve our target of having a single reporting
system."
The US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is building a system
to receive American companies' quarterly results using XBRL. The
system will go live next year, although the SEC has yet to decide
whether to mandate XBRL.
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