The effect of adopting tokenized assets on accounting discretion in fair value measurement under IFRS 9 and IFRS 13

Past decade has witnessed several changes in the process of conduct of business activities across the world especially due to the wave of globalization. It has also made drastic changes in the process of financial reporting, in particular the continuing adoption of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) worldwide. IFRS are high quality, understandable, enforceable and globally acceptable accounting standards issued by IASB (International Accounting Standard Board). Thus these are a set of international accounting standards stating how a particular type of transaction and other events should be reported in the financial statements. Thus IFRS are designed as a common global language for business affairs so that company accounts are understandable and comparable across international boundaries. IFRS is becoming the global language of business with over 40% of the world adopting this as their standard for reporting. India also decided to converge to IFRS from 1st April 2016 in a phased manner, which in turn improves the financial statement comparability and transparency that helps to attract greater cross border investments. This paper focuses on the convergence of IFRS with Indian Accounting Standards, its utility, issues and challenges faced by the stakeholders. It also throws light to the ways through which problems can be addressed.

This study investigates whether the value relevance of accounting information was changed after IFRS adoption in South Korea. Related prior studies have found mixed empirical evidence depending on research methodologies or research periods. Moreover, the effect of IFRS adoption on value relevance can be different between Korean stock markets (KSE and KOSDAQ) because they have different characteristics. Also, the main financial statements reported by Korean firms had changed from individual financial statements to consolidated financial statements after IFRS adoption. Thus, this study analyzes the effect of IFRS adoption on the value relevance of individual and consolidated accounting numbers expanding research periods (5 years before and after IFRS adoption) and comparing changes in explanatory powers of Ohlson (1995) model on each listing market. The empirical results indicate that the value relevance of Korean listed firms generally decreased after IFRS adoption. However, the value relevance of KSE listed firms decreased, while the value relevance of KOSDAQ listed firms increased after IFRS adoption. In addition, it was found that the effects of IFRS adoption on value relevance of individual and consolidated financial information were different depending on listed markets. This implies that different level of demand for information environment may induce differential effects of IFRS adoption on value relevance.

The cryptocurrency market has witnessed significant growth in the past few months. The emergence of hundreds of new digital currencies and the huge increase in the prices of their leading representatives have attracted a lot of attention from investors. However, the financial characteristics of the cryptocurrency markets have not been systematically evaluated yet. As a consequence, there is currently no consensus on whether cryptocurrencies constitute an individual asset class or if they share substantial similarities to stocks, bonds, commodities or foreign exchange. Based on Markowitz et al. (2017) this paper aims to fill this lack of research by evaluating the cryptocurrency market based on seven requirements of an individual asset class. The authors find that the cryptocurrency market distinguishes itself remarkably from established asset classes in terms of risk and return. Additionally, the low correlation between the cryptocurrency markets and these established asset classes induces a diversification potential for investors, leading to more favorable risk/return profiles of their portfolios. But also the emergence of investment services and products provided by the financial industry and the increasingly cost-effective access to cryptocurrencies corroborate the conclusion that cryptocurrencies can be seen as an individual asset class.