Every U.S. bank submits financial call report data to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in machine-readable format. Banks have been reporting this way since 2005.
Watch this video for a conversation with Mark Montoya, Senior Business Analyst of Data Strategy at the FDIC, who was one of the founders of the XBRL FDIC data collection system. Mark has been involved in XBRL since 2001. See excerpts from the video below.
“… the FDIC didn’t want to go out there and create another “XML-flavored” business reporting language. We didn’t need to do that because XBRL already had all the definitions and everything that we needed to implement a solution.”
On data quality:
“Before we used XBRL … the data came in and contained errors… After we used XBRL, the data was 95% clean.”
“The data that came in (before XBRL) was (also) considered 75% clean because the mathematical summations and subtractions were invalid.. after we implemented XBRL, the data was 100% clean.”
On timeliness:
“.. Prior (to XBRL) the data that the (FDIC) examiners used to examine the banks was probably about 2-3 months old which is old data.. (with XBRL) the data can be pulled down in real time.”
On benefits of standards for regulators:
“One of the key benefits for regulators, is that you have a common data dictionary where you can collaborate, communicate with other agencies … have the same terminology.”
On the XBRL community:
“FDIC was really impressed with the XBRL community … they’re very open to help you with issues.. with the XBRL specification .. and answer all your questions… the (global) XBRL community .. they never stop innovating.”
