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K-IFRS is taking root

When Korea accepted IMF bail-out package in 1997 to overcome severe financial crisis, Korea carried out a large scale of intense restructuring. As a part of reforming, Korea Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (K-GAAP) was made out to enhance accounting creditability. K-GAAP, however, was not enough to coincide with international standard, so Korean companies used to be derided with backwardness of accounting standards. As a result, Korea International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS) was phased in from 2009, and the year 2011 was the first year for listed companies and financial companies to write the financial reports in accordance with K-IFRS, as a mandatory requirement.

Accordingly, Financial Supervisory Services (FSS) conducted to examine 2011 financial reports. Total 1,600 financial reports which consist of 655 listed on Korean Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and 945 listed on Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (KOSDAQ) were examined with 121 items.

The result of assessment is meant to be satisfactory. The major incompleteness which can affect users to misunderstand accounting information is not found. Compared to the first quarterly report in 2011 when the major incompleteness was found in 111 reports, this result deserves to be admirable. As a matter of fact, average number of errors per company committed was found only 4.5. The number of financial reports without any errors was as many as 288. The following table is a summary of the examination result.

Section	Market		Volume of Capital (Billion KRW)
	KOSPI	KOSDAQ	Less than 100	100-500	500-2000	Over 2000
Average error/company	3.8	5.0	5.0	4.3	4.1	3.1
Total No. of company	655	945	671	646	183	100

According to the table, the smaller sized companies tend to make more errors than the bigger sized companies. Therefore, FSS will keep giving advices and instruction for those imperfect companies continuously. To modify the found errors, FSS is noticing privately for the companies to encourage modifying their own record.

Furthermore, there is an increasing trend that even not listed companies voluntarily make financial reports in conformity with K-IFRS voluntarily. Generally, adopting K-IFRS from 2011 is mandatory only for the listed companies and financial companies. However, despite of needlessness, 1,142 unlisted companies wrote their financial reports with using K-IFRS in 2011, and additional 261 companies are prospected to adopt K-IFRS in 2012. The major reasons for such trends to adopt K-IFRS voluntarily, notwithstanding the high converting cost, are the accordance of accounting standard between the holding company and the subsidiary company, preparation for the list, enhancing of accounting transparency and improvement of company image.

Korean financial authorities have made endeavours to achieve the competitiveness of accounting system. These endeavours are resulting in the improvement of accounting creditability of Korean companies. Also, it is positive sign for many unlisted companies to adopt K-IFRS spontaneously. At this rate, it is matter of time for IFRS to become established in Korea.

Chaehack Suh (chaeahck.suh@gmail.com)