Accounting & Marketing

International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS): Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

Katta Ashok Kumar

Consistent, comparable and understandable financial information is the lifeblood of commerce and making investment. The idea of global harmonization of accounting standards stems from lack of comparability of financial statements across the country. Increasing cross border investing and proliferation of financial products have posed a challenge to companies as they faced multiple standards. Harmonization and convergence with IFRS can greatly contribute to the efforts to build global financial reporting infrastructure. This resulted in international initiative of convergence of Accounting Standards to a common standard viz. the International Accounting Standards/ International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In India, the ICAI formulates the accounting standards on various issues. But since last few years, the aim has been following the IFRS to the extent possible. Henceforth, while issuing accounting standards, IFRS need to be adopted suitably. However, deviations from IFRS have been noted due to some unavoidable reasons like legal and regulatory requirements, economic environment, level of preparedness, conceptual differences etc. Thus, it can be argued that even if there has been a lot of deliberation on convergence of Indian accounting standards with IFRS, it is difficult to adopt IFRS considering the indigenous problems. In order to resolve this problem, the ICAI has given a roadmap through which, IFRS can be adopted in India in a phased manner. This analytical Paper deals with concept, objective and benefits of convergence with IFRS and explores the way how we converge the Indian GAAP with IFRS. Problems and challenges faced in the process of convergence in Indian perspective have been thoroughly discussed. This paper also focuses on IFRS prospects in Indian scenario. This paper puts forward a view point that convergence will bring forth galore benefits to investors, industry, professionals and the economy as a whole.