ICAI to advise firms to disclose derivative losses

Over three months after it first came out with a new accounting standard requiring companies to provide for all kinds of losses including those from derivative trading, the Indian accounting regulator intends to encourage companies to conform to the norm.

The issue has come to the forefront following a number of Indian companies revealing that they could take a financial hit on bets placed on currencies and commodities.

Last December, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) had come up with a detailed accounting standard "" AS30 "" to establish principles for recognising and measuring financial assets and liabilities and some contracts to buy or sell non-financial items.

It is not yet mandatory for companies to follow this standard, and ICAI President Ved Jain told Business Standard that the regulator did not plan to make it mandatory in the near future. "We do, however, intend to encourage companies to conform to AS30," he added.

Sources added that ICAI intends to push Indian companies to provide for such losses as a matter of prudential accounting.

Last week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had told Parliament that the exposure of banks operating in India to derivatives grew near 300 per cent over two years to gross Rs 127.86 lakh crore by last December.

Indian companies listed on overseas stock exchanges have to disclose any losses on account of derivative trading, as mandated by the International Accounting Standard-39.