The Accounting Standards Board (ASB) has today issued ‘Amendments to FRS 29 – Improving Disclosures about Financial Instruments’. The amendments are based on those issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in March 2009. This package of amendments is part of the standard setting response to the credit crisis by improving the quality of information disclosed in financial statements about financial instruments.

The ASB issued an exposure draft of the amendments in November 2008. Constituents in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland were broadly supportive of the proposed changes to FRS 29. The strong view coming through the responses was that the ASB should ensure FRS 29 remains converged with International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 7) ‘Financial Instruments: Disclosures’.

The amendments to FRS 29 require enhanced disclosures about fair value measurements and liquidity risk. The ASB also took this opportunity to incorporate credit risk disclosures for loans and receivable as this requirement in IFRS 7 had not previously been adopted into UK GAAP.

Entities are required to apply the amendments to annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2009.

1. The ASB is an operating body of the the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting confidence in corporate reporting and governance. Its functions are exercised principally by its operating bodies (the Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing Practices Board, the Board for Actuarial Standards, the Financial Reporting Review Panel, the Professional Oversight Board and the Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board) and by the FRC Board. The Committee on Corporate Governance assists the Board in its work on corporate governance.
2. The main role of the ASB is to contribute to the establishment and improvement of standards for financial reporting. The ASB collaborates with accounting standard-setters from other countries and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) both in order to influence the development of international standards and in order to ensure that its standards are developed with due regard to international developments.
3. The ASB has eleven Board members, of whom two (the Chairman and the Technical Director) are full-time, and the remainder, who represent a variety of backgrounds, are part-time.
4. Hard copies of the amendments to FRS 29 – Improvements to Financial Instrument Disclosures can be obtained at a costs of £10.00 (the same price charged by the IASCF), post-free, from FRC Publications, 145 London Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 6SR (020 8247 1264). Web: www.frcpublications.com.
5. The IASB amendments can be obtained from the IASCF Publications Department – email: publications@iasb.org. Website: www.iasb.org.
6. Press enquiries should be addressed to Ian Mackintosh (Chairman) on 020 7492 2434, David Loweth (Technical Director) on 020 7492 2420, Mario Abela (Project Director) on 020 7492 2442, or Seema Jamil-O’Neill (Project Director)
   020 7492 2422.