Finance, Accounting and Control Case Study

Financial Reporting in the Emerging Capital Markets of India and Pakistan: The Need for Harmonization

OR

Abstract:
Capital market plays a pivotal role in determining a nation's economic growth and prosperity. The recent technological innovations and the lifting of a number of economic and socio-political embargos provided a lot of opportunities for the free flow of capital in the emerging capital markets (ECMs) of India and Pakistan. Many FIIs (foreign institutional investors) considered these third world markets as more challenging as the return was more if funds were invested prudently. The probability of return in these ECMs is much higher compared to the capital markets of the developed economies, as the former had incredible growth potential. But these ECMs were prone to greater volatility. Therefore, corporate disclosures play a crucial role in these markets as they generally experience a diversified and stand alone regulatory pattern of corporate accounting regarding stock market operations. In order to enable the ECMs to fulfil their developmental roles, harmonisation of accounting standards was required as it could give better availability, reliability and comparability of financial information to the investors. The case, therefore, realises the need for harmonisation in the accounting standards of these countries, and creates an impression as to whether the harmonisation could be the solution to create transparency and uniformity in the financial reporting pattern of the ECMs.

Pedagogical Objectives:

Keywords :  Financial reporting, Emerging capital markets (ECM), India, Pakistan, Harmonisation (accounting harmony), Foreign direct investments (FDI), Foreign institutional investors (FIIs), Asian financial crisis, South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC), Regulatory framework, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), International Accounting Standard (IAS), Accounting Standard (AS)