Almost 79% of respondents also believe that IAS-IFRS will contribute towards providing
more reliable financial information in general.
Out of the 21 % of companies which think that this transparency will not be achieved, the
following reasons have been given: the increased risk of "manipulation" interpretation of financial
statements (38%), their complexity (24%) and too big a diversity amongst the companies applying
IAS-IFRS which make the establishment of unique standards difficult (19%).
The fact that IAS-IFRS are similar to Anglo-Saxon concepts gives rise to a certain amount
of worry because their implementation can cause misinterpretations in some countries where
representation and accounting laws are codified in a regulatory way.
Also, more than 3/4 of the companies surveyed think that the process of convergence and
increased comparability which will be brought about by the new Standards will favor the creation of
a European financial market. 65% of them even think that the development of a unified capital
market should be accompanied by the creation of a European stock market regulator.
Nevertheless, let us emphasize that more than half of respondents believe that convergence
between IAS-IFRS and US GAAP is completely essential and this belief is shared by all of the
countries that were involved in this survey.
It is true that the harmonization process introduced by the implementation of the IAS-IFRS
ought to aim even further -coming closer to the American Standards which are already used by
numerous European companies.
Only 12% of the companies interviewed believe convergence is ill-fated.
Conclusions
The objective of the financial statements in accordance with IFRS is to provide useful
information to the users in order to enable them express the economic decisions. Nevertheless, the
financial statements in accordance with IFRS do not include all the information which an user
might need in taking efficient decisions. The Notes to the financial statements make integral part of
the financial reporting process according to IFRS. These Notes include information referring to:
• Specific accounting policies used in the financial statements’ preparation
• Lending contracts, repayment and interest conditions;
• Information referring to the leasing contracts;
• Operations’ distribution on • Assets and contingent liabilities;
• Pension plans, details, provisions.
The accounting professional is interested in assessing the entity’s value or reliability, he
must foresee the future cash flows, evaluate the risks related to these assessments and determine the
appropriate discounting rate which should be applied to those assessments.important segments;