IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures

The objective of this IFRS is to require entities to provide disclosures in their financial statements that enable users to evaluate:

• The significance of financial instruments for the entity’s financial position and performance; and
• The nature and extent of risks arising from financial instruments to which the entity is exposed during the period and at the reporting date, and how the entity manages those risks. The qualitative disclosures describe management’s objectives, policies and processes for managing those risks. The quantitative disclosures provide information about the extent to which the entity is exposed to risk, based on information provided internally to the entity’s key management personnel. Together, these disclosures provide an overview of the entity’s use of financial instruments and the exposures to risks they create.

The IFRS applies to all entities, including entities that have few financial instruments (eg. a manufacturer whose only financial instruments are accounts receivable and accounts payable) and those that have many financial instruments (eg. a financial institution most of whose assets and liabilities are financial instruments).

When this IFRS requires disclosures by class of financial instrument, an entity shall group financial instruments into classes that are appropriate to the nature of the information disclosed and that take into account the characteristics of those financial instruments. An entity shall provide sufficient information to permit reconciliation to the line items presented in the balance sheet.

The principles in this IFRS complement the principles for recognising, measuring and presenting financial assets and financial liabilities in IAS 32 Financial Instruments: Presentation and IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement.

On October 7th 2010 – Amendment to IFRS 7 on enhancing disclosures about transfers of financial assets. And its Effective date of October 2010 amendment to IFRS 7 related to transfers of financial assets, is 1 July 2011. At the time of Amendments, Sir David Tweedie, Chairman of the IASB, said: “These are important disclosure requirements that will help investors to better understand off-balance sheet risks, and to alert them to the possibility of so-called ‘window dressing’ transactions occurring at the end of a reporting period.”

Some important Resources for IFRS 7 and on its amendments:
http://www.iasplus.com/standard/ifrs07.htm
http://www.iasplus.com/pressrel/1010derecognition.pdf