Hello all,
I wanted to let you all know about a new blog, Data Interactive,
that Hitachi America Ltd. XBRL Business Unit has started. Designed
as an online magazine focusing on XBRL and its related issues, Data
Interactive is updated weekly.

The blog is edited by financial expert Bob Schneider and will
feature content written by the Hitachi XBRL team and guest
contributors from the financial services industry, such as Mike
Willis, Founding Chairman of XBRL International and a partner with
PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Gary Purnhagen, a partner with Merrill
Corporation. You can see the blog here:

http://blog.hitachixbrl.com/

Data Interactive welcomes input from industry experts and observers
on the rapidly-evolving XBRL environment.  Those interested in
posting as a guest blogger should contact Hitachi at
xbrl@....

Regards,
Steve Kleine
Spiralgroup (On behalf of Hitachi America Ltd., XBRL Business Unit)

FSA Statement on use of XBRL
28 November 2006
The FSA is aware that a number of regulatory bodies are using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) as their chosen technology for the communication of financial and regulatory information. The FSA have also considered XBRL and have determined that it is not the most appropriate technology for the FSA or UK financial services regulation at the current time. This statement reiterates the FSA's position with regards to the usage of XBRL.

In taking the decision to use standard XML rather than XBRL, the FSA gave consideration to a number of important factors. These considerations are outlined below.

·The FSA's Mandatory Electronic Reporting (MER) system will be developed in partnership with an external development supplier. The system will manage in excess of 150 different 'forms' (referred to as data items) and over 12,000 different reportable facts (referred to as data elements). The system will use these data items and elements and generate tailor-made returns for each and every FSA regulated firm that is required to report via MER. This in itself represents a significant technical undertaking for the FSA and its development partner. The FSA does not believe that there is sufficient XBRL experience within the UK currently to develop this system without incurring additional cost and risk and this approach is in line with our statutory obligation to consider the proportionality of burdens placed on authorised firms.

• In order to promote the efficient and effective use of information, the FSA has committed to introducing a common reporting format across all of its regulatory reporting systems. Existing FSA systems, such as the Product Sales Data system, have been developed in the standard XML format and it is therefore a logical step to introduce an MER system that builds upon and further develops the existing technical infrastructure that supports standard XML based reporting.
• XBRL is a technology that allows listed companies and mutual funds to make their financial and regulatory information publicly available. However, unlike other regulators, the FSA is not required to provide or facilitate access to such corporate disclosures. Therefore, one of the main benefits of XBRL as a 'firm-oriented' technology would not be realised by the FSA.
• The FSA has been mindful of the implications of mandating emerging technology within the UK financial services industry. Feedback from regulated firms suggests that the availability of XBRL software support and industry experience within the UK, whilst on the increase, is still relatively low. The FSA has opted to use standard XML as it is an established technology in the UK's financial services industry and expertise is readily available in the UK. This means that the UK regulated firms will be able to leverage a rich set of tools for handling XML, and benefit from years of industry experience and best practice.

The FSA's foremost concern is the development of a technical solution that is robust, secure, intuitive to use and flexible. Based on the known requirements, standard XML is the format that best meets the FSA's needs.

The FSA will continue to monitor the development of XBRL and it may become appropriate for the FSA to reassess its position in relation to XBRL. The FSA is already taking steps to ensure that the XML-based architecture that it develops now would support XBRL transformation should the need arise in the future.

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
100 Plaza 5, 24th Floor
Harborside Financial Center
Jersey City, NJ  07311-4001
201-915-8780

The information
contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is
confidential and may not be disclosed without our express
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agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this
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or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or
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however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment
thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no
liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this
e-mail message.

The Promise of Interactive Data by Christopher Cox Source: Securities and Exchange Commission Published: 12.07.06      Summary At the 14th International XBRL Conference, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox indicated that the SEC strongly supports the goal of XBRL-US to document every taxonomy that's necessary to produce financial statements for any industry using US GAAP by no later than mid-year 2007.  Full Article 14th International XBRL Conference Philadelphia, Pennsylvania December 5, 2006 Thank you, Jim [Glassman, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute] for that kind introduction. It really is a pleasure to be introduced by Jim Glassman. He is the consummate optimist. And it's always nice to be introduced by someone who's upbeat. Of course it takes a true optimist to write a book, right on the eve of the dot-com crash, titled "Dow 36,000." I had to laugh the other day, when I was doing a little Internet research on Jim — because I knew he was going to be introducing me — and I found his book on Amazon.com. And you know how Amazon always tells you, "Customers who bought this item also bought" some other book? And you know what the #1 book that customers who bought Jim Glassman's "Dow 36,000" also bought was? It was John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Great Crash of 1929." No wonder hedge funds are so popular these days. But truly, I am grateful, Jim, for that kind introduction. And of course none of us ever wishes to be introduced by a pessimist. You all know the classic definition of an optimist and a pessimist. The pessimist says, "This is terrible. Things can't possibly get any worse." And the optimist says, "Sure they can." Besides Jim Glassman, who has no peer when it comes to understanding the intersections of technology and investing, I'd like to recognize Sir David Tweedie, who, as a matter of fact, is a peer. It's an honor to join in this program with a man who has made so many contributions, in so many ways, to the development of the world's capital markets, including service as head of Britain's Accounting Standards Board, and who now is leading the International Accounting Standards Board. With apologies to Sir David, I can't help but observe the significance of our meeting in Philadelphia today. After all, this is where the Declaration of Independence was born, as the patriots united behind the battle cry of "no taxation without representation." And here we are today, Brits and Americans from both sides of the Atlantic, uniting behind a battle cry of "no taxonomies without documentation." Well, let me tell you, I am absolutely committed to that objective. XBRL-US intends to document every taxonomy that's necessary to produce financial statements for any industry using US GAAP by no later than mid-yr 2007. And because the SEC strongly supports that goal, we have contributed major funding to quickly complete the taxonomy writing process. In that endeavor, we're fortunate to have the participation and commitment of the Financial Accounting Foundation, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and many of their able leaders — including Bob DeSantis and Bob Herz, both of whom are participating in this conference. This job of completing the XBRL taxonomies for U.S. GAAP is already finished for many industries. And more than a year and a half ago, the staff of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board recognized that the current U.S. GAAP taxonomies, because they were developed by a widely recognized group of experts using due process, meet the regulatory requirement of providing the "suitable and available criteria" that auditors need to do their jobs. Because this is an international conference, it's worth noting that the SEC is committed to doing everything in our power to ensure that XBRL remains a truly international, stateless, and open source standard. All of the XBRL software development that we do, and that we support, will be open source. It will be contributed to the global effort to eliminate friction in the exchange of financial information, so that company data can travel at the speed of light, 24/7, with built-in automated quality control. At the SEC, we're excited about the way that interactive data is already providing us with the capability of real-time reporting and real-time analysis. And in the days ahead, across the Commission's thousands of professional staff in a dozen offices throughout the country, it will free up human capital to perform the subtle analyses and make the careful judgments that machines can't replicate. Interactive data will do the same for millions of analysts, business journalists, investment professionals, and individual investors across the country, and around the world — not to mention the companies that use XBRL themselves, who will have the benefit of real-time financial reporting for an endless variety of internal management control purposes. Beyond the many uses that companies, investors and analysts will make of interactive data, it's easy to imagine more that the world can do with this powerful new capability. As Sir David and I follow the roadmap to 2009 that our agencies have laid out, by which we hope to eliminate the requirement that reports using International Financial Reporting Standards be reconciled to U.S. GAAP, it is already possible to imagine that XBRL taxonomies — written without bias toward any particular set of accounting rules — could be used to instantly translate any given set of financial data from one accounting system to another. So even if the world is never quite possessed of a global accounting Esperanto, we will still be able to speak the same language. Of course, the United States is strongly committed to the establishment of a high-quality, comprehensive set of generally accepted international accounting standards in cross-border securities offerings. We've long believed that this will promote global capital formation, and that it will make it easier for foreign issuers to access America's capital markets and list in the U.S. I have no doubt that the widespread use of XBRL, and the exploitation of the many possibilities of interactive data, will accelerate the development of a set of truly global accounting standards. The fact is, the XBRL development effort is already completely international. Not only this international conference, but also the ongoing work of XBRL International and its member organizations around the world, are ample demonstrations of that fact. I want to commend the XBRL International Assurance Working Group, which met at the World Congress of Accountants in Istanbul last month, and will meet again here on Thursday. The Working Group is absolutely right to consider how the adoption of XBRL might improve the audit process. Just last month, in a report issued at the Global Public Policy Symposium in Paris, six of the world's top accounting firms extolled the benefits of XBRL, and firmly stated their belief that its adoption will significantly lower both internal and external audit costs. From our vantage point at the SEC, it's also clear that interactive data will significantly improve audit quality. Last month, the SEC's Deputy Chief Accountant, Scott Taub, noted that over half of recent public company restatements were the result of misapplying basic accounting rules. Only about 5% of restatements were due to deliberate errors, or to fraud. So there is an enormous opportunity for automation to help corporate finance staffs and auditors avoid simply missing things — and to avoid the kinds of unintentional mistakes that can have big consequences. Because it's so flexible, XBRL can ensure that the right information is classified properly at each step where it's implemented — potentially without the need for any human judgment or intervention, and therefore without the risk of human error. Interactive data can improve quality and accuracy for vast categories of material information, from the moment of an initial transaction to the ultimate disclosure of a public company's aggregate data. Just consider the areas that cause a large number of restatements: mundane but detail-laden issues such as lease contracting, income tax accounting, and revenue recognition. Now imagine that a company's lease is itself an XML document, with XBRL fields, so there's almost no chance of error in moving info from the lease to the company's accounts. And supposing that same company classifies its income according to accounting rules that properly apply XBRL codes — and hardwires its revenue account to its invoicing system. Significantly reducing the chance of error in this way can go far toward eliminating the over half of accounting restatements that are unintentional and result from misapplication of accounting rules. You may have heard that the SEC is waging an all-out war on accounting complexity. That's because today's overly complicated accounting standards are difficult for many filers — and can themselves be a source of accounting errors. But the noble work that the Financial Accounting Standards Board is undertaking to codify its standards, and reduce the level of accounting complexity, will take time. In the meanwhile, automating the process of applying today's excruciating accounting detail using XBRL can save companies valuable time and money, and get users of financial reports much more accurate information than they've ever had before. And I should point out that not only can XBRL help reduce errors in the first place, but it can also help detect them after they occur. Here's an interesting example of how that might work. Just this year, a group of students at Emporia State University in Kansas won the Sixth Global XBRL Academic Competition at Bryant University by creating a software application that continuously identifies tagged transactions which should come to the attention of internal or external auditors. It's not hard to imagine that in the very near future, companies of all kinds will be able to rely on interactive data to flag anomalous data and fix accounting errors in real time. In this example, as in so many others, the enormous contribution of interactive data is that it makes human beings more productive. Instead of spending time on backward-looking, manual re-checking of stale data, companies and their employees can spend more time on forward-looking, strategic thinking. And interactive data will make investors more productive, too. Instead of wading through incomprehensible financial disclosure that's mandated by the SEC, investors can have access to meaningful information in a form that they can use. Financial intermediaries will be able to offer their retail customers decision-making tools that make comparative shopping easier, and performance tracking more accurate and more meaningful. As the arbiter of the way that every public company in America shares their financial information with the public, the SEC has an important role to play in this technology revolution. We need to get out of the way. After all, it's our 1930s-era reporting standards that are acting as a brake on the rapid adoption of better disclosure technology that's shelf-ready right now. By scrapping our 1980s-era EDGAR system and moving to a 21st century interactive data platform, we're not leading the XBRL revolution — we're just observing what's happening all around us, and all around the world, and keeping up with the times. By contributing resources to the XBRL taxonomy writing effort for US GAAP, we're not being early adopters — we're just insuring that government-mandated reporting requirements don't inhibit companies and investors from using modern tools that the private sector has already developed, and that the entire planet is voluntarily embracing. That's why, on September 25, I announced a series of contracts that will completely rebuild the SEC's public disclosure system and make it interactive. I'm pleased to announce that today — a mere 70 days later — the first product of those efforts is available to the public. Today, on our website at sec.gov, we've launched a demonstration release of our new software for viewing and analyzing the interactive data filings that are already being submitted by a broad cross section of U.S. companies. It's now available for a test drive by investors, analysts, bus journalists, academics, your Mom or Dad — or anyone who wants to try out our new software to get a sense of the possibilities of interactive data. Because this new software is for demonstration purposes, you can be sure it's just the beginning. In the very near future, we'll enhance the capabilities of the demo version, and make it even easier for all of the SEC's customers to use. It's important for everyone in this audience to know that despite our enthusiasm for interactive data, the SEC has no intention of getting into the financial analysis business, or the financial software business, and we won't attempt to compete with web-based financial portals or other financial service providers. In fact, because all of our software development is being contributed to the public domain, we hope to stimulate the private sector development of software that uses SEC data feeds, so that investors will have better and faster information from the analytical tools created by securities analysts, private software developers, web publishers, and other media outlets that rely on publicly disclosed financial information. A great example of private sector leadership in this area is being provided by the Investment Company Institute, which even now is busy writing XBRL taxonomies for mutual funds to adopt voluntarily. Tagging mutual fund data will enable funds to automate the "risk/return summary" provided by each fund. If you Google "risk/return summary," you'll find out that this is the graphic historical comparison of the fund to its index — as well as other key fund data that the SEC requires every mutual fund to produce. But you'll also find that commercial vendors are selling fancier, more detailed versions of these disclosures. They're expensive to make. And whether they're paid for up front by mutual fund companies or information providers, in the end, they're paid for by investors. So not only will interactive data empower investors to make faster and more detailed comparisons among funds, but also it will cut the costs that investors have to pay for this information. When it comes to satisfying investors' concerns, there's no limit to the usefulness of XBRL. There is so much data out there that could be tagged — earnings releases, analyst research, credit ratings, mutual fund strategies and styles, and plenty of industry-specific information — that the only remaining question is not whether this is good for investors, but how fast can we get this better information to them? And that's where all of you come in. Even now, six years into the 21st century, far too many people still think XBRL might be a new car model, or maybe a newly discovered medical condition. There are more than 10,000 public companies in the U.S., and many of them aren't yet aware of the possibilities. So what can every one of you do to continue to build XBRL awareness as broadly as possible? The enthusiasm of the crowd here in Philadelphia needs to spread to beyond the largest accounting firms, to the medium and smaller firms, to the law firms, the financial printers, the institutional shareholders, the exchanges, and every other Wall Street and professional services firm that can help. I've been greatly encouraged by the progress that's been made over the past year in providing XBRL toolsets — whether for taxonomy development, instance creation, validation, rendering, or analysis. And as you know, there's a lot of work going on this week related to technical questions, including XBRL's core standards, its renderability, the use of calculations, versioning, formulae, functions, and dimensions. You are the ones who have accepted these important challenges to the future of business information. I hope you'll add to that mission the role of ambassador. In doing so, you'll be performing a vital and urgent national service of updating disclosure technology for the benefit of all. You'll be serving a cause with the potential not just to change how a bunch of suits in New York and London do their jobs, but to change the lives of every person in the world for the better. Every one of you here this morning is building a better future in which business information can be used more efficiently and productively to find ways to conserve energy, to ship and produce healthy food less expensively, to bring life saving drugs to market more quickly, or to reduce pollution. You're not just writing code — you're changing the world. What better place than Philadelphia to start another world-changing revolution? I'm excited by everything I've seen here, and I know you are too. Thank you for all that you're doing. We at the SEC are proud to be your partners.  Related Articles SEC Chairman: Data 'Tags' May Reduce Accounting Errors Dow Jones News Service - 12.05.06 IT's Take on Sarbox Moving to Asia CFO.com - 11.30.06 SEC Filings Can Now be Searched with Full-Text Tool Associated Press - 11.14.06   ©2006 PricewaterhouseCoopers. All rights reserved. PricewaterhouseCoopers refers to the network of member firms of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity. Legal Disclaimer, Copyright and T&C's / Privacy Statement. Click on Contact Us if you have any questions.

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Hi All,

I'm a technologist working on a couple of start-up business ideas that
require financial data. I have recently found out about XBRL, so I
apologize if this is a typical beginner's question:

Is there a vendor out there who sells an XBRL data feed, presumably
EDGAR derived, containing all the basics of publicly traded companies'
financials, such as Earnings Per Share, Market Cap, and Indicated
Dividend? I'm looking primarily for a low-cost, basic data feed,
rather than extensive (and expensive).

Also, does anybody have a "feel" for how quickly XBRL is going to be
adopted by the SEC? Just how far away are we from a future when XBRL
filing is mandatory? Considering that there are vendors who make a
living from parsing the EDGAR filings into truely computer-readable
format, is it likely the SEC will take away their "bread and butter"?

Thanks,

Alex T. Ramos
Zigabyte Corp.

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrsa/en/issue/0702/article/R0702A.jhtml

The Harvard Business Review has XBRL as one of their 20 breakthrough business ideas for 2007.

The link above will take you to the article discussing it.

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
100 Plaza 5, 24th Floor
Harborside Financial Center
Jersey City, NJ  07311-4001
201-915-8780

The information contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is confidential and may not be disclosed without our express permission. If you are not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify us by telephone, fax or e-mail and delete the message and all of its attachments. Thank you. Every effort is made to keep our network free from viruses. You should, however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this e-mail message.

I thought some of our list members would be interested in the 3rd Annual NYSSA-XBRL Event on April 11th:
 

XBRL for Equity Research and Investment Analysis 

Date: Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Time: 4:15 p.m.-7:15 p.m. Reception to follow

Location: Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity, Baruch College, 55 Lexington Avenue

Free for members and nonmembers

Learn how XBRL can be used in the equity research and investment analysis process to expedite routine tasks, including accessing and analyzing information from corporate filings and earnings releases. Key regulators and stakeholder representatives will explain how the implementation of XBRL into the regulatory reporting process will meet the needs of individual investors and professional analysts. A panel discussion will center on ways in which XBRL could add the most value to investors and what needs to be done from a regulatory perspective in order to make this a reality. A cocktail reception will directly follow the event.

Speakers and panelists from regulatory organizations and the Wall Street investment community including:
Alfred R. Berkeley, III, Board Member, XBRL US  
Jeffrey J. Diermeier, CFA, President and CEO, CFA Institute
John W. White, JD, Director, Division of Corporation Finance, SEC
Donald M. Young, Board Member, FASB
Representatives from Xerox, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and other sell-side and buy-side investment firms

Chair: Eric P. Linder, CFA, SavaNet

To register for program, click here: 

http://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/xbrl2007

CFO.COM article on XBRL below.
http://www.cfo.com/printable/article.cfm/8876759/c_8877012?f=options
Arthur
--
No Extra Audit for XBRL, Says Cox
Most companies that took part in Monday's SEC roundtable on interactive data have had positive experiences of their own.
Alan Rappeport, CFO.com
March 20, 2007
The Securities and Exchange Commission will use a light hand in regulating audits of XBRL, chairman Christopher Cox said at Monday's SEC roundtable on interactive data.

Cox has long championed XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), a computer-tagged format intended to help users of financial statements better manipulate, analyze, and compare data from company financial reports. Indeed, he has maintained that XBRL "will do for business reporting what bar coding did for product distribution."

The SEC chairman has acknowledged, however, that an extra layer of regulation at this early stage in the XBRL program would add to companies' compliance burden, reduce flexibility in reporting their numbers, and perhaps dissuade them from adopting XBRL at all. "The goal is not to make the system more cumbersome," Ric Marshall, chief analyst at governance research firm The Corporate Library, told CFO.com.

Apparently, Cox agrees. On Monday, he announced that the creation of tags — the strings of computer code assigned to every line item in a financial statement prepared using XBRL — will not require an additional audit. "We're vastly relieved," said Andrea Stegall, vice president of corporate governance at South Financial Group.

Companies that took part in the roundtable had other positive stories to share as well. Most have digitized their financial statements and earnings reports and found that the transition has been more intuitive and less costly than they expected. Once you get over the initial investment, "the costs are very incremental," said Elmer Huh of Lehman Brothers' enterprise valuation group. "The benefits outweigh the costs."

Comcast chief accounting officer Larry Salva reported that his company spent $5,000 and about 150 hours on its first XBRL filing. Other companies have outsourced some transitional work to consulting firms. "It's just another requirement," said K.R. Kent, chief financial officer and vice chairman of Ford Motor Credit. "It wasn't too onerous."

Just as well, since the SEC seems determined to push ahead. Last September the commission announced that it would invest $54 million to transform its 20-year old EDGAR system into an interactive, XBRL-enabled database. Soon it will provide free XBRL reader software on its web site, and by this summer it will offer XBRL-tagged executive-compensation data for several hundred of the largest companies in America, Cox said.

Advocates of XBRL maintain that it can help standardize information for directors who sit on multiple boards, and that improved transparency will build trust between companies and investors. "This is intended to remove barriers so we can focus on the substance," said the Corporate Library's Marshall. "Anyone who is resistant to this might be worried about their substance."

Cox — who on Monday compared XBRL technology to the personal computer revolution a quarter-century ago — has taken an "open source" approach, lauding pioneers and inviting private programmers to improve on existing software. He insisted, however, that accuracy in financial reporting comes first and foremost. "We need to be relentless in assuring that these are the right numbers," said Cox.

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
100 Plaza 5, 24th Floor
Harborside Financial Center
Jersey City, NJ  07311-4001
201-915-8780

The information contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is confidential and may not be disclosed without our express permission. If you are not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify us by telephone, fax or e-mail and delete the message and all of its attachments. Thank you. Every effort is made to keep our network free from viruses. You should, however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this e-mail message.

Ready for a Test Drive: XBRL Financial Tags
Up until now, the development of data tags for GAAP has been a slow-moving process because of the complexity of American financial reporting standards.
Alan Rappeport, CFO.com
June 20, 2007
The future of interactive data will be a lot nearer next month. The reason: A user-ready version of XBRL labels for information reported under generally accepted accounting principles will soon be ready for a test run.

Speaking before the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council, Rob Blake, vice president of domains and taxonomy at XBRL US, said Tuesday that regulators would launch a preliminary, or "alpha," version of the taxonomy— the data-labeling information needed to run extensible business-reporting language — in three to four weeks before distributing a user-ready version on July 24.

XBRL US is currently working with FASB, FAF and the Securities and Exchange Commission to review the GAAP taxonomy before it goes public in July. XBRL US is the local jurisdiction of XBRL International - a not-for-profit consortium of about 450 companies and agencies worldwide working together to build XBRL language and push its adoption.

The development of data tags for GAAP has been a slow-moving process because of the complexity of American financial reporting standards. According to Blake, the GAAP taxonomy will be comprised of up to 12,000 different elements. The International Financial Reporting Standards, by contrast, has just 1,000 different elements, he said.

Some have expressed concern about the complexity of using XBRL across U.S. and international reporting standards. Members of FASAC also wondered about the logistics of implementing XBRL and creating a "critical mass" of users.

Even if the taxonomy is skillfully executed, it won't have much of an impact if the number of users remains small. "It's not going to be all that meaningful until it's being used in the market," says Robert DeSantis, president of the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF).

While results from the pilot program have been largely positive thus far, the system must perform so automatically as to be invisible, accord to Blake. "XBRL needs to be like the plumbing," he says. "It doesn't need to be at the forefront, but it needs to make things happen faster and better."

Some accounts of time saved via the use of financial data-tagging are already in. An article published in the June issue of the Journal of Accountancy reported, for example, that United Technologies Corp., a producer of industrial products, saved 145 hours by using XBRL in its most recent 10-Q filing.

But will XBRL have to become a requirement to entice all companies to adopt it? "We could be living in a world, two to three years from now, where Moody's is demanding this information," says Blake. If ratings agencies and analysts assess companies based in part on their transparency, companies may find it in their interests to report in XBRL regardless of whether it is mandatory, he adds.

From CFO. Com at http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/9357258/c_9357581?f=TodayInFinance062007

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
100 Plaza 5, 24th Floor
Harborside Financial Center
Jersey City, NJ  07311-4001
201-915-8780

The information contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is confidential and may not be disclosed without our express permission. If you are not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify us by telephone, fax or e-mail and delete the message and all of its attachments. Thank you. Every effort is made to keep our network free from viruses. You should, however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this e-mail message.

Cox Defends XBRL to Senators
The early adopters of the SEC's interactive data system will test the efficacy of the program when they file their 10-Qs next year, says the commission's chairman.
Sarah Johnson, CFO.com
August 01, 2007
The Securities and Exchange Commission's push for the expanded use of technology that makes financial reports interactive will get a critical test at the end of next year's first quarter. In fact, "2008 will be a no or go year" for the future use of extensible business reporting language, said SEC chairman Christopher Cox during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

Asked by Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) why only 36 companies are currently using the program — which gives users of financial statements the ability to analyze and compare information between companies based on computer-tagged data — Cox explained it is still in the pilot phase. When the companies that are participating in the pilot program begin to use the finalized XBRL data tags, or so called taxonomies, in their first 10-Qs filed next year, the SEC will find out "whether they like it or not and whether it works," Cox said. He expects the XBRL labels for information reported under generally accepted accounting principles to be ready for companies' use by the end of this year's third quarter.

A pet project of Cox's, XBRL was one of many topics the chairman addressed during nearly three hours of testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. He was there to update the senators on the state of the securities market and the work the SEC has done over the past year, including its recent adoption of a new internal-control auditing standard, a solicitation for comment on possibly allowing U.S. companies to use international financial reporting standards, and the commissioners' split vote on two proxy-access proposals.

Sununu was concerned that XBRL will allow companies to provide fewer disclosures in their financial statements. Cox assured him that the commission would require the same disclosures under the new program. XBRL would in fact give investors better access to the information because they could find it more easily, he added.

In addition, he claimed XBRL will benefit the preparers of financial statements. "The use of interactive data can make companies' internal processes more efficient, saving investors' dollars for the costs of registration and compliance reporting to the SEC," Cox said.

Cox also noted his confidence in the project, considering that those companies that have been XBRL guinea pigs have stuck with the volunteer program. If they had thought the process was painful or expensive, they likely would have stopped using it, he suggested. However, the small number of participants could reflect a lack of enthusiasm on the part of public companies willing to give XBRL a try. More than a year ago, Cox was similarly promoting the use of interactive data before the Senate Banking Committee, backed by only 17 companies signed up to use it.

Cox acknowledged that more work needs to be done before XBRL is tested next year. In order to fully realize its benefits, companies need to incorporate the approximately 15,000 standardized data tags that will be ready later this year. Currently, the XBRL volunteers are using their own data tags. Microsoft, for example, has 600 customized labels, according to Cox.

http://www.cfo.com/blogs/index.cfm/detail/9571388?f=TodayInFinance080107

Arthur Fliegelman

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http://rrdevents.novamedia.co.uk/?EventID=12

XBRL - Moving Closer to SEC Adoption
University Club
1 W 54th St
New York, NY 10019
Thursday 18 October 2007
Registration and Breakfast: 8:00am
Program: 8:30-9:30am
Complimentary Seminar includes Breakfast and Provides CLE/CPE Credit.

Phone: (212) 247-2100

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
7 World Trade Center, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
212-553-1934

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Another (Small) Step for XBRL
XBRL-US rolls out a more complex set of computer-code tags that turn financial statements into interactive data, but critics worry it will be costly to implement.

Alix Nyberg Stuart, CFO Magazine
October 23, 2007

CFOs may not be able to avoid the topic of XBRL for much longer. A new and more comprehensive version of the data tags that turn financial statements into "interactive data" has been completed and goes into market-testing this month. XBRL-US, the nonprofit organization hired by the Securities and Exchange Commission to develop the tags (small pieces of computer code), will work with at least 13 of the 48 companies currently filing SEC documents in XBRL to see how well the new version works, according to CEO Mark Bolgiano. Since taking over the project last year from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (which inherited it from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants), the group has been standardizing tags for primary financial statements and footnotes, expanding the number from less than 2,500 to 15,000.

That sixfold increase means companies will have to do less customization, which should make it easier to convert the typical items found on financial statements into XBRL format, according to Bolgiano. Critics, however, are concerned that it will make XBRL more costly. "They've built a Taj Mahal when what we needed was a nice four-bedroom house," says one source close to the matter. He predicts that conversion will require substantial — and expensive — consulting help similar to what was required for Sarbanes- Oxley compliance. The new language as currently drafted may not satisfy one major constituency — Wall Street analysts — since its structure is too complex, says Eric Linder, CEO of Savanet, which makes a software tool that analysts would use to read XBRL statements.

While the SEC has not yet mandated the use of XBRL, it has invested $54 million to create the technology necessary to, as it stated last year, "pave the way toward universal XBRL." Chairman Christopher Cox's public enthusiasm for the project, as evidenced in speeches, multiple roundtables, and congressional testimony, has only heightened the expectation that XBRL will replace the current HTML-based system. There's no official word on when or whether that might happen, but the eventual public release of the final XBRL code (expected in 2008) will be a major milestone, says Jeff Naumann in the SEC's Office of the Chief Accountant, since the current EDGAR system can already handle XBRL documents.

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
7 World Trade Center, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
212-553-1934

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http://www.cfo.com/blogs/index.cfm/?#10086588

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
7 World Trade Center, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
212-553-1934

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In case you didn't get this e-mail.

-----Original Message-----
From: AICPA XBRL [mailto:AICPA_XBRL@...]
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 4:27 PM
Subject: Free XBRL Webcast

XBRL and the use of interactive data for reporting of US GAAP
information is rapidly becoming a reality. Various market constituents
such as: public company preparers, software providers, financial
analysts and others have collaborated to build the US GAAP taxonomies
(dictionary of US GAAP terms and definitions that are used when
companies create XBRL documents) and documentation.

The first draft of the XBRL-US GAAP Taxonomies and the Preparers
Guidance (how preparers actually create XBRL-enabled financial
statements) will be available for public review and comment.

Join your fellow professionals on Monday, December 17th (1:00 pm - 2:30
pm ET) and be introduced to the XBRL concepts and walk through the steps
to review and provide your comments.

After attending this session you will learn:

-  What XBRL is and what it can do for business
-  How to use XBRL to reduce costs and improve internal reporting
processes
-  How XBRL can be used throughout an organization to improve the
quality of information and decision-making
-  How to participate in the SEC's Voluntary Filing Program
-  How to actively participate in the public review of the US GAAP
taxonomies and preparer guidance
-  How to access the taxonomies and preparer guidance for review
-  How to navigate the review tool and the information that is available
there
-  Levels of review and what is needed at each level
-  How to submit comments once a review is completed

There is an option to earn CPE credit for this webcast. To learn more
and to register, please click here.

http://email.aicpa.org/cgi-bin15/DM/y/ea4H0Mhb7H0FhI0ghH0Ei

If you have any questions, please contact Ami Beers at abeers@...

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When:   Monday, December 17, 2007 1:00 PM-2:30 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada).

You can get more info on the program and register at: http://tinyurl.com/33hvvo

Arthur

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From CFO.com: http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/10486715/c_10487163?f=singlepage

XBRL Skeptics Abound: Some doubt that interactive financial data will be of much use.
Alan Rappeport
CFO.com | US
January 7, 2008
Despite a relentless push by the Securities and Exchange Commission to promote its "interactive data" agenda, skepticism of XBRL won't die. Critics have called the introduction of extensible business-reporting language, or XBRL, a boon for consultancies and regulators but a pain for practitioners.

After attending a panel last month on the SEC and accounting developments in Atlanta, Jay Starkman, who runs an accounting firm there, was so unimpressed that he penned a letter to The Financial Times complaining that XBRL is a "consulting product" in search of a market.

advertisement "If it was really that great, it wouldn't have to be mandated," Starkman told CFO.com. "It's being pushed by the people who have an interest in pushing it."

Top audit firms and consultancies have been touting XBRL for a while. As early as 2003, PricewaterhouseCoopers deemed interactive data a "top tech trend." Proponents hope it will make financial data easier to sort and analyze, but others see it as an expensive gimmick.

In the midst of the debate on XBRL's merits, the SEC has moved forward with making the technology ready for prime time. Last year the commission completed the development of data tags for the entire system of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and began contemplating whether XBRL should be mandated. The regulator also recently introduced handy tools, such as a viewer for comparing executive pay and risk-return data on mutual funds. Meanwhile, many participants in the SEC's pilot program have publicly cheered about how seamless the XBRL transition has been for them.

But not everyone is so happy with the prospect of XBRL. "It's not going to help me make an analysis," says Starkman, explaining that the ability to sort data will not make the information easier to interpret or give users the ability to read between the lines of a balance sheet. "I want to use the whole financial statement. It's an art, not a science."

Others at the same panel Starkman attended agree: "It is more than a minor annoyance to companies," says Brink Dickerson, a securities attorney with Troutman Sanders in Atlanta.

Some of those peeves are the need to manually code data until mainstream software packages catch up with the XBRL technology, the time it will take to file statements both in XBRL and the traditional way, and the potential liabilities that could be incurred if the technology has glitches that make information less reliable. Considering those issues, "it is not clear that the benefits that can be obtained justify the costs," says Dickerson.

To be sure, participants in the SEC's pilot program have said the costs thus far have not been overly burdensome. Comcast, for example, spent just $5,000 and 150 hours on its first XBRL filing. However, other companies have been fearful that if mandated, XBRL might lead to more regulation. "Don't be fooled just because XBRL has been around for a long time and nothing has happened," says Cody Smith, a partner in PwC's national office. "It may have to be applied in the nearer term." He has heard of concern that XBRL could require an additional audit.

For its part, the SEC has said it will be lenient with its regulation of XBRL during the "adoption" stage. Last year Christopher Cox, the SEC chairman, said the creation of tags — the strings of computer code assigned to every line item in a financial statement prepared using XBRL — will not require an additional audit.

Observers have also noted that XBRL could represent new competition for existing firms that peddle financial information for a profit. Providers such as Bloomberg, Reuters, and Thomson Financial make a living selling financial data that cannot be redistributed. XBRL — which is intended to make data easy to access, sort, manage, and compare — could eat into such businesses.

In spite of its detractors, XBRL is forging ahead. Last week members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board traveled to SEC headquarters to discuss XBRL issues. Traffic has also been picking up at the free XBRL viewer on the SEC's Website. According to Rivet Software, the creator of the Web-based viewer, that part of the site had nearly 18,000 visits in December, compared with only 5,000 last March. "It's really been spiking since September," says Christy Rohrs, an accountant and senior consultant at Rivet.

In response to Starkman's letter, the FT received and published several others pointing out misconceptions about interactive data in its defense. One noted protectively that "you don't have to be a geek" to appreciate XBRL. Even Starkman concedes that with more work and information dedicated to developing XBRL, "it could hold some promise."

The information contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is confidential and may not be disclosed without our express permission. If you are not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify us by telephone, fax or e-mail and delete the message and all of its attachments. Thank you. Every effort is made to keep our network free from viruses. You should, however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this e-mail message.

SEC May Propose Mandatory XBRL Use
The commission could launch a plan in the spring and vote on it in the fall, a top regulator says.
Stephen Taub, CFO.com | US
January 24, 2008
Extensible Business Reporting Language, the computer language for financial-statement filing better known as XBRL, could soon be coming to a regulatory filing near you.

The Securities and Exchange Commission may propose the mandatory use of XBRL in the spring and vote on it this fall, SEC corporation finance division director John White reportedly told a legal conference at Northwestern University.

White granted that "a lot has got to happen" before the use of XBRL is required, including modifications to the SEC's Edgar database and acceptance of recently issued common definitions for items to be tagged, according to the Associated Press. Nevertheless, White told his audience, "This is real, it's happening,"

Critics have called the introduction of XBRL, which has been called bar codes for financial data, a boon for consulting firms but a pain for practitioners. For its part, the SEC has asserted that it makes it easier to find and compare results.

So far, about 40 companies currently are voluntarily experimenting with XBRL, according to the AP.
Earlier this month, the SEC's Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting voted to ask the SEC to require the 500 biggest U.S. public companies to use XBRL-tagged financial statements for one year, followed by all large accelerated filers. After evaluating how those first phases went, the SEC would then consider whether to require other companies to also use XBRL.

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/10566162/c_10566200?f=TodayInFinance012408

Arthur Fliegelman

The information contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is confidential and may not be disclosed without our express permission. If you are not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify us by telephone, fax or e-mail and delete the message and all of its attachments. Thank you. Every effort is made to keep our network free from viruses. You should, however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this e-mail message.

This past week, I have proposed to the SEC, FASB and XBRL US organizations to merge the Banking and Savings taxonomy with the Broker Dealer taxonomy to create one taxonomy for all financial companies except insurance.   There are many significant benefits to this approach with only a few minor drawbacks.  Here are some of the reasons for, and benefits of, combining these two taxonomies, but I'm sure there are more.  I be interested in getting comments, both supportive and not, from any interested parties on this:

1.       Increased Comparability:  Comparability is absolutely essential to the analyst and individual investor community and having unnecessary taxonomy divisions between industries is perhaps the single greatest cause of unnecessary non-comparability. 

2.       Reduced Development and Maintenance Overhead:  Every additional base taxonomy not only adds that much more associated development work, but will create significant additional support and maintenance costs.  For example, if an analytical application adds up certain line items to calculate a certain measure of adjusted earnings, different formulas are likely to have to be created for each base taxonomy.  So, combining these taxonomies will result in significantly less development AND support work for the country.

3.       Structural Similarities Lead to Easy Combination:  There are no "structural" differences between the Banking and Broker taxonomies as there is with the commercial-industrial taxonomy (which separates current and non-current assets) so they can share a presentation linkbase and even the same financial statement extended links.  There are some elements that may only apply to banks or brokers, but fewer than for the different industries covered by the commercial-industrial taxonomy for example.

4.       Greater Convergence with IFRS taxonomies:  Given the fact that foreign countries generally did not have the Glass-Stegall era divisions between banks and brokers, financial reports for foreign banks and brokers have not been as distinct as they have been in the US.  As such, the IFRS taxonomies do not differentiate between these two industries but rather differentiate by Sheet Format and an Income Statement for all Financial Institutions.  So, if the US merged the banking and broker taxonomies, they would more closely follow the international architecture.

 
SavaNet has successfully merged the content of both the banking and broker taxonomies into a single one for all [non-insurance] financial institutions and has extensively tested it.  We have found the merging of the two taxonomies very easy as the few significant differences are mostly only due to different nomenclature rather than definition.  A Banking and Savings' institutions "Trading Assets" for example is definitionally very similar, if not exactly the same, to a broker's "Securities Owned at Fair Value", for example.

One thing I can see which might appear not to support the merging the taxonomies is the 40+ year old SEC regulation S-X, whose division between banking and brokers has become an anachronism.  However, merging the taxonomies would not run in conflict to Regulation S-X even as it stands now, as companies would be able to meet its requirements using the combined taxonomy, so this is not really an obstacle.

Interestingly, one of the very few noticeable differences between the banking and broker taxonomies was the absence of Fed Funds purchased and sold in the broker taxonomy, but, given this month's events with the Fed's decision to open its window to brokers even this last practical distinction has been eliminated.

 
Eric P. Linder, CFA

Hi Eric:

I think you hit a key point in noting that financial firms use an unclassified balance sheet.  Maintaining this presentation is important for proper analysis.

Barry

Barry P. Korn, CFA

Cell: 917.434.3000

Fax: 212.937.5265

Email: bkorn@sprintpcs.com

---

From: nyssa-xbrl@yahoogroups.com [mailto:nyssa-xbrl@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of ericlndr
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 12:15 AM
To: nyssa-xbrl@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [nyssa-xbrl] Merging of XBRL Banking and Broker Taxonomies

This past week, I have proposed to the SEC, FASB and XBRL US organizations to merge the Banking and Savings taxonomy with the Broker Dealer taxonomy to create one taxonomy for all financial companies except insurance.   There are many significant benefits to this approach with only a few minor drawbacks.  Here are some of the reasons for, and benefits of, combining these two taxonomies, but I'm sure there are more.  I be interested in getting comments, both supportive and not, from any interested parties on this:

1.       Increased Comparability:  Comparability is absolutely essential to the analyst and individual investor community and having unnecessary taxonomy divisions between industries is perhaps the single greatest cause of unnecessary non-comparability. 

2.       Reduced Development and Maintenance Overhead:  Every additional base taxonomy not only adds that much more associated development work, but will create significant additional support and maintenance costs.  For example, if an analytical application adds up certain line items to calculate a certain measure of adjusted earnings, different formulas are likely to have to be created for each base taxonomy.  So, combining these taxonomies will result in significantly less development AND support work for the country.

3.       Structural Similarities Lead to Easy Combination:  There are no "structural" differences between the Banking and Broker taxonomies as there is with the commercial-industrial taxonomy (which separates current and non-current assets) so they can share a presentation linkbase and even the same financial statement extended links.  There are some elements that may only apply to banks or brokers, but fewer than for the different industries covered by the commercial-industrial taxonomy for example.

4.       Greater Convergence with IFRS taxonomies:  Given the fact that foreign countries generally did not have the Glass-Stegall era divisions between banks and brokers, financial reports for foreign banks and brokers have not been as distinct as they have been in the US.  As such, the IFRS taxonomies do not differentiate between these two industries but rather differentiate by Sheet Format and an Income Statement for all Financial Institutions.  So, if the US merged the banking and broker taxonomies, they would more closely follow the international architecture.

SavaNet has successfully merged the content of both the banking and broker taxonomies into a single one for all [non-insurance] financial institutions and has extensively tested it.  We have found the merging of the two taxonomies very easy as the few significant differences are mostly only due to different nomenclature rather than definition.  A Banking and Savings' institutions "Trading Assets" for example is definitionally very similar, if not exactly the same, to a broker's "Securities Owned at Fair Value", for example.

One thing I can see which might appear not to support the merging the taxonomies is the 40+ year old SEC regulation S-X, whose division between banking and brokers has become an anachronism.  However, merging the taxonomies would not run in conflict to Regulation S-X even as it stands now, as companies would be able to meet its requirements using the combined taxonomy, so this is not really an obstacle.

Interestingly, one of the very few noticeable differences between the banking and broker taxonomies was the absence of Fed Funds purchased and sold in the broker taxonomy, but, given this month's events with the Fed's decision to open its window to brokers even this last practical distinction has been eliminated.

Eric P. Linder, CFA

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The AICPA will host a live, interactive Webcast titled XBRL for SEC Reporting covering the current status of XBRL with the SEC and what it means to financial statement preparers and market stakeholders. The SEC has announced an open meeting to consider the use of interactive data in corporate financial statement filings with the Commission.  Will this mean a mandate for the use of XBRL in company filings in the near future?  On May 19th, join the live panel of key experts from the SEC, XBRL and the SEC’s Voluntary Filing Program as they discuss how this technology will change the way companies communicate and disseminate information to stakeholders.  What do you need to know to be ready for this? How will your company be impacted? What can you expect from the use of XBRL? Get answers to these questions and many others in this interactive session that will give you the latest update on XBRL. There is an option to earn CPE credit for this webcast. To learn more and to register, please click here.

The information contained in this e-mail message, and any attachment thereto, is confidential and may not be disclosed without our express permission. If you are not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message, or any attachment thereto, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify us by telephone, fax or e-mail and delete the message and all of its attachments. Thank you. Every effort is made to keep our network free from viruses. You should, however, review this e-mail message, as well as any attachment thereto, for viruses. We take no responsibility and have no liability for any computer virus which may be transferred via this e-mail message.

I will be out of the office starting 05/08/2008 and will not return until 05/27/2008.

I'm out of the office from May 9th to 27th. If your message requires urgent attention please contact Norm Leonard (nleonard@...), Eric Gyulumyan (egyulumyan@...) or Shaun Olson (solson@...). Otherwise, I will respond to your message when I return.

Regards,

It's Alive: Data-tagging Plan Expected Wednesday
The SEC likely will roll out a timetable for companies to begin submitting their financial statements in interactive XBRL format.
Alan Rappeport, CFO.com | US
May 13, 2008
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox is expected Wednesday to announce a long-awaited plan to mandate companies to file their financial statements in an interactive data-tagging format.

Also known as XBRL, for extensible business reporting language, the data-tagging technology could be a boon to information-hungry investors and analysts who would be able to more easily search and compare companies' financial statements, proponents say. However, it could also cause headaches for CFOs, depending on how long the SEC gives them to turn their traditional, static financial statements into interactive, searchable documents.

The SEC has hinted at its plans, noting on Wednesday's agenda that it will consider whether to propose an interactive data amendment to determine how any mandate might be phased in. Cox's enthusiasm has been clear from the start, as he has relentlessly pushed XBRL as the keystone to his agenda for greater transparency.

"This will probably be one of the most important changes since the Securities Act of 1933 and when Edgar put filings online in 1996," says Sunir Kapoor, a board member of XBRL US and CEO of UBmatrix, a provider of XBRL products.

Kapoor said he expects Cox to announce that the agency will take six months to get its interactive data team ready and that big companies will be required to file in XBRL format sometime next year. The SEC's Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting (CIFR), an advisory board, recently recommended that the commission mandate XBRL's use and suggested the agency require all publicly traded companies to data-tag their financial documents using a phased-in schedule based on company size.

Prospects of a new mandate have drawn the ire of some critics who worry about the costs and wonder about the benefits of XBRL. Wednesday's announcement could dash any last hopes for a future of static financial statements.

"The train has left the station," Kapoor says. "The only question is really the scope and the timing."

Arthur Fliegelman
Vice President & Senior Credit Officer
Moody's Investors Service
7 World Trade Center, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
212-553-1934

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