Japan: Market Participants Get Involved in XBRL for Corp Actions Taxonomy

Tokyo - The Japanese market has seen interest in adopting XBRL for corporate actions, and industry discussions have resulted in cross-border co-operation in the creation of a corporate actions taxonomy, officials tell Inside Reference Data.

Japan has already adopted XBRL for financial reporting. Local issuers submit corporate disclosure information to Tokyo Stock Exchange, and statutory disclosure information to the regulator the Japan Financial Services Agency.

More recently, there has also been market interest in expanding the scope of data tagging programs to corporate actions, and XBRL Japan is now collaborating with XBRL US in the creation of a corporate actions taxonomy.

Tokyo-based Makoto Koizumi, senior consultant, Fujitsu Research Institute, and chair, best practice board, XBRL International, says the driver for the interest in using XBRL for corporate actions in Japan is the benefits this move would result in for data consumers, clearing and settlement groups, information providers and analysts. It is now important that the issuers also understand that the benefits realized further down the chain will make up for the data creation efforts done at their end, he says.

The work with XBRL US, which started last summer, has involved professionals from XBRL Japan researching the interoperability between the XBRL taxonomy and ISO 20022. The aim is to ensure a corporate actions announcement can be tagged using XBRL and understood and used throughout the ISO world.

This would increase straight-through processing in the corporate actions market. "The benefit to the Swift community is comprehensive data acquisition from the source, removing the risk of interpretation and largely of translation for coded data," says Virginia-based Max Mansur, global market manager, custodians and asset servicing, Swift.

Swift Takes Standards Discussion to Asia

Interbank utility Swift, which has been involved in the work with XBRL Japan and XBRL US, has recently promoted messaging standard ISO 20022 in Asia, and Mansur has been speaking at several regional market events, such as the first XBRL Asia conference. "What we've been doing is really an education, to let regulators know there's a problem with text-based announcements," he says.

Swift is working with XBRL, has just joined XBRL Europe and now plans to join XBRL Japan. ISO 20022 will be linked to XBRL, which will facilitate language translation of all coded fields. "A move to an ISO standard strengthens investor servicing, and makes the market more attractive to cross-border investors," he says.