Qatar Stock Exchange CEO Rashid Al Mansoori.
Doha: Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) yesterday announced another element of its ongoing transparency and disclosure initiatives with the confirmation of its roll-out of Q-Disclosure, an XBRL-based reporting system which will ‘go-live’ on October 1, 2020. XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is the result of a move towards a single global electronic financial reporting standard allowing more efficient retrieval and analysis of financial information.
The standard was developed by an international non-profit consortium of over 650 major companies, and government agencies and adopted by accounting standards bodies, regulators, and banks around the world. XBRL is either in mandated or in voluntarily use in an increasing number of countries including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Israel, Korea, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil, Japan and the United States.
QSE CEO Rashid Al Mansoori said: “The benefits of XBRL are well established but for Qatar and listed companies we emphasise the need to be following best practices increasingly demanded by the investment community. The listed company itself will have complete verifiable control of standard documents simplifying the financial reporting process and standardising the regulatory disclosure process.”
The system will be a webbased solution, available in Arabic and English, fully aligned with IFRS and designed with sector specific taxonomy for Banks & Financials, Insurance (Commercial and Islamic), Real Estate and Others (to cover Consumer, Industrials, Telecoms and Transportation).
Abdul Aziz Al Emadi, Listing Director at QSE, added: “Listed companies and their auditors have had nearly eleven months to prepare, test and familiarise themselves with Q-Disclosure and each listed company has had the opportunity to go through at least two reporting cycles before the third quarter of 2020 deadline. We have also taken the opportunity to listen to feedback during the UAT phase. We believe as a market we are well prepared and we look forward to the Q-Disclosure Platform adding value in part through the standardisation of information across companies and sectors.”
Al Mansoori concluded: “We believe adoption by listed companies will improve the transparency of our markets and alongside previous initiatives such as the IR Rules, ESG Guidelines and increased coverage by LPs, should over time deliver more liquidity to the benefit of all stakeholders.”
