Monitoring Board

In January 2009, the IASB formed a 'monitoring board' composed of representatives of international regulators. Said board has been fairly quiet but has just said that standards should be 'reliable, relevant, understandable and comparable'. This is an interesting straw in the wind because it reflects the old wording of the IASB conceptual framework, not the proposed new wording, which replaced 'reliable' with 'faithful representation'. Words matter and this was not just a cosmetic change. 'Faithful representation' was seen by some commentators as part of an ongoing trend to move towards fair values.