Uk Bank Accounting Rules 'fatally Flawed'

[Timm]

http://www.telegraph...l-watchdog.html

While reviewing the proposed expansion of the International Financial Reporting Standards for accounting, Tim Bush, a member of the “Urgent Issues Task Force” that scrutinises the work of the Accounting Standards Board (ASB), claims to have uncovered “fatal” and “dangerous” flaws in the system.

The City veteran has argued that applied to banks, the standards “produced false profits and overstated capital” which have “misled creditors, misled shareholders, the Bank of England, FSA and others”.

In a devastating assessment, Mr Bush alleges the regulations, and specifically the way they have been implemented in the UK and Ireland, have led to “mistakes [being made] of such severity that it is difficult to overstate”.

In his letter, Mr Bush wrote: “Although IFRS had been rolled out across the EU, the UK and Ireland implemented it so extensively that the impact was different. It has been a ‘double dose’ to the extent of being a deadly dose, by removing what had underpinned banking solvency for over 120 years.”

He said the system produced figures that hid instability in banks, so that directors and regulators of the banks could look at the audited figures and conclude that banks were not just solvent but had excess cash.

As for banks in the lead-up to the financial crisis: “They did not have the capital that they presented, and they were not going concerns. The true situation was that business models were loss-making and actually consuming capital.”

Mr Bush wrote: “In engineering terms it was like a signalman sending a train down the wrong track. The UK had the first failing bank, Northern Rock, which only the month earlier appeared to have so much capital it applied to reduce it. IFRS merely reports the train crash rather than prevents it.”

He said the system is still flawed and urged the Government to scrap plans to extend the standards. “In my view, the direction that the ASB took, and is still taking, is… causing direct business risk.”

That is very stong lanuage being used there.

There again, it is the Panicagraph, so everything will probably be OK.

[General Congreve]

http://www.telegraph...l-watchdog.html

That is very stong lanuage being used there.

There again, it is the Panicagraph, so everything will probably be OK.

Yeah, everything's going to be fine. In fact better than fine, I can clearly forsee a golden future

Edited August 26, 2010 by General Congreve

[VeryMeanReversion]

Whilst accounting standards are zero, there really isn't much point holding stocks, just leave that to the computers playing between themselves.