1st European XBRL Conference for Financial Services
How XBRL will improve Financial Services reporting by 2006

Every day - in their relations with the supervising authorities as well as with customers within the credit analysis procedures - banks confront the requirements of the reporting process. The costs in time and money caused by multiple formats and requirements are a major concern to financial services organisations everywhere.

The banking sector is especially interested in two issues: customer reporting and regulatory reporting. XBRL is of great help to both of them.

XBRL - eXtensible Business Reporting Language - is an XML-based format for the electronic communication of business and financial data. Because it is content-independent, XBRL is a standard that can handle all formats and requirements.

The development of the IFRS taxonomy and the new Basel II taxonomy is evidence that XBRL enabled reporting is now the reality. It is time for the financial sector to engage and capitalise on this important work.

Nevertheless, certain questions are still open - for example:

• When will banking supervisors adopt this standard?
• What are the costs of development and implementation?
• How stable are the technical specifications?
• Are software solutions available?

XBRL in Europe, with the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, propose to provide answers to these and many other questions during the 1st European XBRL Conference for Financial Services on 29 June in London.

We will then have the great opportunity to hear the points of view of José Maria Roldan (Chairman of the Committee of European Banking Supervisors), Peter Praet (Director at the National Bank of Belgium and member of the management committee of the Belgian Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission), Pierre-Yves Thoraval (Deputy General Secretary of the French Banking Commission), Tom Jones (Vice-Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board), Gerald Santucci (Head of the e-Business Unit at the European Commission), and Federico Florez (IT Director of the Bank of Spain) - and also the experiences of several of the largest European banks, such as Deutsche Bank, San Paolo IMI and Morgan Stanley. We will also hear the point of view of the Borsa Italiana - as 40 Italian banks are listed on this securities exchange.

The conference will provide bank executives, supervisors and regulators with opportunities for networking as well hearing presentations from the leading authorities in the regulatory sector. You will find detailed information about the conference programme here. Please register early, as the conference is limited to 250 delegates.

This event is organised by XBRL in Europe within the 6th Framework Program funded by the European Commission and is financed exclusively by the participant fees and by XBRL in Europe.

We look forward to seeing many of you - but please do not wait until the last moment to register, because the venue can accommodate only 250 participants.

On behalf of XBRL in Europe, I look forward to welcoming you in London on 29 June 2005.

Olivier Servais
Permanent Secretary – XBRL in Europe.