The Hopes and Fears of Accountants – and Accounting Standards Setters – Revealed?
When people talk of how technology is likely to impact the future, the discussion goes one of two ways. Either down a road of fear that technology will bring with it an end to our freedoms and a loss of our jobs. Or that technology will pave the way for a new world where value and attention can be focused for the betterment of society, leaving automation and AI to simply enable this process to occur.
At an IFRS Trustees/CFA Institute symposium in London recently, the key questions revolved around what the relevance of traditional “fundamental” data (aka financial statements) would be in the light of increasing reliance on “Alternative” data sources, such as satellite imagery of logistics facilities to measure how busy a particular manufacturer might be.
Black Rock’s Mr David Wright explained how he and his quant-trading colleagues use more and more alternative data every week, with “traditional” financials comprising perhaps just 10% of the data that goes into their models.
Chairman of the IASB, Mr Hoogervorst, went somewhat pale at this pronouncement, but was at least somewhat cheered when it emerged that while the financials make up a small amount of the models, it remains the information that the analysts place the greatest confidence in. The future of financial reporting appears to remain safe, at least for the currently foreseeable future.
More here.
