The Bank of Russia intends to improve the quality of issuers' financial statements, increase their value and ensure greater demand. The Central Bank submits the relevant proposals for public discussion. This is reported on the regulator's website.
The Central Bank primarily plans to eliminate duplication of information. Currently, issuers are required to publish reports on their activities twice a year, based on the results of 6 and 12 months. Moreover, these documents have static sections where there is no promptly updated information, for example, a section on corporate governance. It is advisable to disclose such information in the annual report, which is a key tool for communicating with investors, the regulator emphasizes.
At the same time, the Central Bank considers it necessary to standardize this document. There may be mandatory chapters that the issuer can structure at its discretion. Currently, there are no strict requirements for its composition — it is important that it is simple.
The Central Bank also proposes to eliminate the time lag between the publication of the consolidated financial statements and the issuer's report, which explains the reasons for achieving such results. According to the regulator, these documents should be disclosed simultaneously so that the market has up-to-date information about the company's activities.
Another initiative of the Central Bank is the transition from manual preparation of reports to electronic formats. The use of machine-readable forms will reduce the time spent on data processing and analysis, which will help investors make investment decisions based on high-quality information, the regulator believes.
