One small step for Europe as GLEIF and ESMA publish example ESEF report
Leading by example, this week the Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF) published its annual report in Inline XBRL format. But GLEIF went further than that. The report has also been published on the ESMA website as an example ESEF report. The report conforms to the requirements set out in the ESEF Regulation and the guidance in the ESEF Reporting Manual.
You can find the report on the ESMA website here. You can find the report, with an Inline XBRL Viewer on the GLEIF website here and read a little bit more about it here.
It has been made available to the public to provide an example of how existing ESEF requirements may be applied – useful for the many companies across Europe who will soon begin publishing annual reports for their financial year 2020 and onwards in accordance with ESEF regulation. Regulators, issuers and users in other parts of the world might like to see this “preview” of ESEF filing too.
Including the LEI in all ESEF reports is a core requirement and assists with transparency about the identity of the issuer.
Of even more importance, from our perspective, GLEIF has signed the report with their own digital signatures, with their own LEI embedded in the signature. This demonstrates the ease with which additional security and clarity can be established: embedding a LEI makes verifying a filing’s identity simple, increasing trust in the authenticity of a filing. It also increases transparency, especially surrounding ownership structures, and as such, makes regulation and data aggregation simpler and more accurate.
GLEIF’s voluntary early adoption of ESEF regulation is a great example of what is soon to arrive across Europe: digital financial information that is vastly more usable, comparable and transparent.
We’ve been pleased to help this effort in some small ways, and congratulate GLEIF, ESMA, Workiva and OpenSBR for all of their hard work.
Read more here. Access the report and an Inline XBRL viewer on the GLEIF website, where you can also read more about the incorporation of GLEIF’s LEI.
