SEC Rule Proposal would require “tagging” mutual fund reports by end of 2009
Washington, May 23 – XBRL US, the national consortium for XML standards for business and financial information reporting, commends the actions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which voted unanimously this week to propose mandating the use of XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) for mutual fund risk/return information. The elements in the risk/return summaries of mutual fund prospectuses that will be easier for investors to extract and compare fund to fund include investment objectives, strategies, principal risks, historical fund performance and the fund fee table. The collection of terms was developed by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the national association of U.S. investment companies.
As the XML standard setter in the U.S. marketplace, XBRL US has established a solid foundation for business and financial reporting, and anticipates incorporating the mutual fund data into that framework to ensure that all reporting applications are consistent, reliable and interoperable.
“As I noted during the SEC’s open meeting earlier this week, the SEC intends for the mutual fund risk/return list of tags to be updated to the common, improved architecture designed last year by XBRL US for the tags which are used for public companies,” said David Blaszkowsky, Director of the SEC’s Office of Interactive Disclosure, “We look forward to XBRL US’ contribution to this, which is consistent with their role to ensure that financial and business reporting applications will be interoperable and more efficient, resulting in better quality, more reliable information for investors and other users.”
Under the terms of the current proposal, all mutual funds would be required to submit the risk/return summary information from their prospectuses in interactive data format using XBRL to the SEC’s EDGAR database and to post it on their web site, if they maintain one.If the rule is adopted by this Fall, the effective date for XBRL-formatted submissions would be December 31, 2009.The XBRL-formatted documents would be provided for registration and for any subsequent statements that are issued and would be a supplement, not a replacement, to the traditional filing in Ascii text or HTML.The XBRL documents would be submitted after but within no more than 15 days of the traditional filing.
“The risk/return summary information in mutual fund prospectuses is vital to helping individual investors make decisions about how to invest money that will ultimately be used for retirement, for college education, and for tomorrow’s needs,” said Kristi Kaepplein, Director of the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, “The use of interactive data will enable better decision making because information will be faster to market, more accurate and allow easier comparison of the more than 8,000 funds on the market today.”
On May 14, 2008, the SEC unanimously voted to approve a rule proposal to mandate XBRL formatting for all public company submissions to EDGAR, following a phased in approach.The rule is out for a 60 day comment period.
“This is the second unanimous vote of the Commission on the use of XBRL and confirms the importance of interactive data in improving the functioning of the capital markets,” said Campbell Pryde, Chief Standards Officer, XBRL US, “Our members and the market have built a firm foundation for others to build on, and it’s created real momentum.Investors stand to gain from the greater accuracy, granularity and comparability of information in XBRL format.”
XBRL US has been in contract with the SEC for the past year to build out the collection of financial and business reporting terms representing U.S. GAAP required disclosures and common reporting practices (taxonomies) that public companies will use to create their own XBRL-formatted financial statements. The elements included in this collection of terms include the primary financial statements and footnotes. XBRL US completed the development of the XBRL U.S. GAAP Taxonomies on April 28, 2008 and delivered the taxonomies and related documentation to the SEC. The taxonomies and Preparers Guide can be viewed at http://xbrl.us/pages/us-gaap.aspx
Public company financial executives can find out more about how to get started creating XBRL-formatted financials, register for free educational webcast programs and get information on the breadth of tools and services available at xbrl.us (www.xbrl.us).
About XBRL
XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is a royalty-free, open specification for software that uses XML data tags to describe business and financial information for public and private companies and other organizations. XBRL benefits all members of the information supply chain by utilizing a standards-based method with which users can prepare, publish in a variety of formats, exchange and analyze financial statements and the information they contain. XBRL International is a non-profit consortium of approximately 550 organizations worldwide working together to build the XBRL language and promote and support its adoption. XBRL International is responsible for the technical XBRL specification and each country-specific jurisdiction works to facilitate the development and adoption of local XBRL taxonomies, or dictionaries, consistent with accounting, regulatory, and market standards and practices.
About XBRL US
XBRL US is the non-profit consortium for XML business reporting standards in the United States and is a jurisdiction of XBRL International. It represents the business information supply chain, including accounting firms, software companies, financial databases, financial printers and government agencies. Its mission is to support the implementation of XML business reporting standards through the development of taxonomies relevant for use by US public and private sectors, working with a goal of interoperability between sectors, and by promoting adoption of these taxonomies through the collaboration of all business reporting supply chain participants. XBRL US has developed taxonomies to support U.S. GAAP and common reporting practices under a contract with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The XBRL US GAAP Taxonomies are available for review at http://xbrl.us/pages/us-gaap.aspx.
Source: XBRL US, Inc.
