CityCompass is undertaking a benchmarking of systems in financial services and their ability to support XBRL functionality for regulatory and statutory reporting and to facilitate corporate governance.
“The major global markets are all moving towards electronic reporting of regulatory and statutory information with the FSA already some way down the line with their own industry project,” says Gary Wright, the Managing Director of CityCompass and creator of the business benchmarking concept. “However, there is a greater value and ROI to the financial services firms than simply complying with regulatory requirements that extends into corporate governance and client services. The BISS Benchmarking of vendors systems for XBRL will help highlight to the financial services firms the real value to their business of XBRL and which systems are leading the way.”
Alan Jenkins from CityCompass Research is the analyst undertaking the benchmarking exercise. “The global move toward XBRL reporting for both internal and external management reasons is well underway but for many financial services firms it is still difficult to find the return on investment apart from the cost driver of mandatory reporting,” he says. “The benchmarking is taking a much wider analysis of the potential benefits of XBRL and establishing which systems are best in achieving measurable business values. I will be recruiting FS industry users to form the benchmarking panel and expect to have completed the benchmarking by June 2005.”