Новости

Can Russia go on without Visa or Mastercard?

Russia will have its own national payment system eventually, Putin recently promised that it would. But will that be done easily? Similar payment systems operate in many counties today. Originally they were oriented towards internal markets, but in time became popular abroad.

Investors recommend sustainable requirements to listing rules on global stock exchanges

An association of investors, companies, and policy makers Ceres recently suggested that stock exchanges should add sustainable standards to their listing requirements. In order for their shares to be traded on organized markets, companies will have to make ESG (“environment, social and governance”) disclosures.

EFRAG comments on ESMA’s Alternative Performance Measurement

Not long ago the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) initiated consultations on alternative performance indicators. Today the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) expressed its opinion on the idea.

Popular ways to improve efficiency of internal audit

Today internal audit committees in companies use various strategies to increase efficiency of internal audit, one of the most popular of which is the «one-to-many» approach. The idea here is that internal auditors perform testing only once, but simultaneously check for correspondence to several regulations and standards at once because questions which should be asked in each particular case are virtually the same or at least very similar. It is not as easy as it sounds, though.

ACCA calls to focus on sustainable value creation

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) published a consultation document Creating value through governance – towards a new accountability. Accounting experts are trying to analyze corporate governance and risk management from the point of view of how well they correspond to their main goal.

IRS will see bitcoins as property

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued an information notice yesterday, explaining its treatment of bitcoins and other virtual currencies from the point of view of federal taxation.

Russia’s Audit Council discussed possibility of joint international inspections

The Ministry of Finance reported on the latest meeting of the Audit Council which had taken place on 20 March. Government officials continued discussion of opportunities for improvement of Russian auditing, and as part of this general initiative this year the Council plans to take a number of concrete steps.

IASB proposed amendments to IAS 1

The International Accounting Standards Board suggested amendments to IAS 1 “Presentation of Financial Statements” as part of its Disclosure Initiative in which several more short-term projects are expected to come.

Fitch lowered its forecast for a number of large Russian companies

The international rating agency Fitch expects higher probability of default in the long-rum for several large banks and companies of Russia, among which are Sberbank, Alfa-bank, Vnesheconombank, Rosselkhozbank, Gazprombank, Rosagroleasing, also subsidiaries of large intenational banking groups - Raiffeisen bank, Citibank, Nordea bank, Rosbank, and others. The forecast was lowered from “stable” to “negative”.

Antimonopoly services of Russia eased control over banking transactions

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia now wants to make banking business – and especially M&As in the banking sector - easier. Amendments to the current legislation were developed to allow more transactions to go without preliminary notifications.