May, 2021 Newsletter

May, 2021

Financial Transparency Act (FTA) reintroduced to 117th Congress. This important bill, if passed, calls for eight financial regulatory agencies to require data standards for their reporting entities. The FTA was reintroduced on May 4, 2021, as H.R. 2989 by co-sponsors Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC). Agencies named in the bill include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Reserve, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) which collects data from municipalities issuing securities is also included in the section referencing the SEC.

Climate topics continue to dominate the headlines.

The White House published an Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk on May 20, 2021, which seeks to establish “… within 120 days of the date of this order, a comprehensive, Government-wide strategy regarding … the measurement, assessment, mitigation, and disclosure of climate-related financial risk to Federal Government programs, assets, and liabilities in order to increase the long-term stability of Federal operations“.

Separately, Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee gave a speech, Living in a Material World: Myths and Misconceptions about “Materiality”, in which she addressed the importance of the investor in determining what is “material” and should be disclosed, including ESG-related topics. Lee noted in her speech, “We must not operate under the false assumption that the securities laws already effectively elicit the information investors need. We must not be diverted by mistaken views regarding the SEC’s rulemaking authority. And we must not be persuaded to ignore scientific evidence or other decision-useful data on the grounds that it intersects with issues of political or social concern. I hope we can dispense with these misnomers as we continue the important debate on how best to craft a rule proposal on climate and ESG risks and opportunities.”

In March, the SEC published a Request for Comment on Climate Disclosure. The deadline for comments is June 15, 2021.

XBRL International launches Inline XBRL repository for filings prepared under the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) mandate. The index – https://filings.xbrl.org – showcases reports submitted under the ESEF mandate. Each submission includes the filing displayed in an Inline XBRL Viewer to allow visitors to browse marked up data, data tagged as XBRL-JSON, and a copy of the XBRL Report Package for the filing. The aim of the repository is to give issuers, vendors, auditors, analysts, other data users, and regulators an opportunity to understand how filings are being prepared, how the data can be used, and what improvements may need to be made going forward. Learn more about the repository.

Point of View Blog Posts

Are XBRL data better at predicting future stock returns? By Steven Huddart, Smeal College of Business, Penn State University. Research from Penn State finds that the flexibility, timeliness, granularity, and authoritative nature of freely available, as-filed XBRL data has advantages that sophisticated data users should consider. The research finds that while commercially available, normalized datasets serve an important role in the capital markets, as-filed (XBRL) data may have better predictive capabilities.

Recent XBRL US Webinars

DQC 15th Ruleset Public Review & SEC/FASB Support for Rules.

DQC Chair and Director at Toppan Merrill Joan Berg, and Senior Director at the AICPA Ami Beers reviewed the latest proposed rulesets and explained how the SEC now alerts filers to problems in their filings triggered by XBRL US DQC rules. Learn how filers can identify and resolve these errors in their filing prior to SEC submission.

Watch the replay:https://xbrl.us/events/210512/

Webinar Series: Inline XBRL for Small Reporting Companies and Foreign Private Issuers

This 2-part series covered the fundamentals of inline XBRL preparation for companies in the third wave of the SEC rollout of inline XBRL and cover page tagging, with XBRL US member speakers from Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., Certent, an insightsoftware company, and Novaworks LLC. In addition, each session featured a guest speaker to help filers better understand how their data is being used.

Session 1: Julie Marlowe, Assistant Director, Office of Structured Disclosure, Division of Economics and Risk Analysis, Securities and Exchange Commission, provided SEC observations and basics about the rule that every filer should understand. Watch the replay: https://xbrl.us/events/210519/

Session 2: Pranav Ghai, co-Founder and CEO, Calcbench explained how and why investors and analysts use and need machine-readable (XBRL) data from small reporting companies and foreign private issuers. Watch the replay: https://xbrl.us/events/210526/

Upcoming XBRL US Steering Committee and Other Member Meetings

The next Data Quality Committee meeting will be held Tuesday, June 29 at Noon EDT. Get information about the Committee and register: https://xbrl.us/events/dqc-210629/

The Domain Steering Committee will meet Thursday, June 3, at 3PM EDT. https://xbrl.us/events/dsc-210603 – all XBRL US Members are invited to attend

The Communications Steering Committee will meet Tuesday, June 15, at 3 PM EDT. https://xbrl.us/events/csc-210615 – all XBRL US Members are invited to attend

The Regulatory Modernization Working Group will meet Tuesday, June 8, at 3 PM EDT. (membership@xbrl.us for details)

XBRL US Members are encouraged to attend and get involved.

XBRL US Members are committed to engaging and collaborating with other members, contributing to the standard through involvement of their teams, and striving to build awareness and educate the market. Members of XBRL US represent the full range of the business reporting supply chain.

Not yet an XBRL US member? Maybe it’s time to consider joining XBRL US for yourself ($55 – $500/ year) or your organization (fees vary). Find out more about the benefits of membership and how to become involved by visiting https://xbrl.us/benefits.