1. TRANSFORMING BUSINESS DATA COLLECTION & DISTRIBUTION
“An Update on XBRL in Singapore”
Corporate Registers Forum 2011
11 May 2011
Ms Sia Su Chun
Head, Financial Information Division
To provide a responsive and trusted regulatory environment for
businesses and public accountants

2. Agenda
 Overview of Financial Reporting Process
 Objectives of Going XBRL
 Transformation in Business Data Collection and Distribution
 Benefits in Going XBRL
 Demonstration of Power of XBRL: XBRL-enabled Analytical
Tools
2

3. Overview – Financial Reporting Process
Directors Financial
Statements Auditor
 Preparer
 Ensures compliance with
Accounting Standards
and gives a true and fair
view according to the Shareholders
Companies Act
 Responsible for filing  Tabled at AGM
with ACRA
Prepared and filed in XBRL
3rd Party
Promotes information Consumers
flow
6

4. Objectives of Going XBRL
Manual data extraction Duplicative financial
by information retailers reporting regulatory
Challenges requirements
 Accurate?
 Cost efficient?  Same piece of data but
Timely? XBRL
Why For ACRA: termed differently
 Different forms of
Strategic fit of XBRL with a corporate registry’s
submission and reporting
role in bringing value into the financialtimelines
information
supply chain
Facilitate the eventual
Efficiently collect and establishment of a one-
promulgate value-added XBRL stop filing by business to
corporate information the Government
7

5. Reform in Filing of Financial Statements
– Going XBRL
9

6. Transformation to XBRL (Collection)
 General requirements:
 Coverage: All unlimited and limited by shares Singapore
incorporated companies will file their financial statements in
XBRL except for the excluded categories (e.g. financial
institutions such as banks)
 Filing requirements:
 XBRL financial statements filed as part of Annual Return.
 Choice of filing options: Full XBRL (Option A) or Partial XBRL
(Option B)
 Effective period: Filing from 1 November 2007 onwards
 Coming to 150,000 XBRL filings as of 31 October 2010 (3 years after
implementation)

7. Transformation to XBRL (Distribution)
Open Analytics Singapore Financials Direct
https://www.openanalytics.com.sg http://www.financialsdirect.sg/
 Public-private collaboration: XBRL-enabled analytical tools to provide value-
enhancing information at the fingertips of information users
 Individual company’s information
 Calculation power for statistics of companies’ financial performance:
 Financial ratio analysis
 Industry trend analysis
 Cumulative years trends analysis
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8. Transformation to XBRL (Distribution)
Showcase of benefits of
XBRL
Government agencies
saw the potential of
Feedback business analytics in
mechanism for their own domain
improvement in
taxonomy
Pave the way for
greater data sharing
across agencies: SBR

9. Benefits of Going XBRL
 Streamline existing inefficiencies in the entire spectrum of financial
information supply chain
 Enable information resellers who serve the business
community more time to focus on higher-value added activities
 Ability to provide users with value added financial data in an
almost instantaneous and interactive manner
 Facilitate ACRA’s regulatory work
 Examples: use of XBRL for surveillance of companies’
compliance to accounting standards and monitoring of
delinquent public accountants officer in ACRA:
Quote from surveillance
 XBRL’s ability to thepresent and comparison information
“XBRL has enabled extraction standardised
instantaneously has reduced thewhich has
of relevant information,
data extraction time which
greatly enhanced our surveillance capabilities”
was previously inhibitive
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10. ACRA’s Journey to Transform
Use Of Business Data with XBRL
* Similar to SBR (Standard Business Reporting):
- A multi-agency initiative that simplifies /
harmonises reporting from business to Government 2010 and Beyond
- XBRL used as enabler (A World Class
Corporate
2007 - 2010 Registry)
(Pioneering - WOG effort for
Interactive Data B2G: Making it
Use) easier for business
1990s - 2006 (Evolving
- “XBRLised” to report to the
G2B and G2G Data
financial data government *
Use)
- Greater G2G - Unlocking the
- Private sector
sharing of XBRL potential of
collaboration
data greater B2B, G2B
1980s (Start of Our - Platforms launched and G2G data use
- Richer G2B data
Journey) to provide data
flow with XBRL-
services to both public
- A Master database enabled tools
and private sectors
- Standalone data
service

11. Thank You
Coming Up Next
Demonstration of Power of XBRL: XBRL-Enabled Analytical Tools