Balancing Competing Values To Ensure Regulatory Essay: A Comparison Between Australia And Singapore.

Discuss about the Balancing Competing Values to Ensure Regulatory.

The main purpose of this assignment is to analyze the financial markets of two countries and make a comparison on the same. For the purpose of this report, the two countries which have been selected are Australia and Singapore. As per Stachowiak-kudla & Kudla, (2017), Financial regulations may be defined as the form of regulation which various financial institutions are subjected to certain rules and regulations which are to be followed by the bank in order to maintain the integrity of the financial system (Stachowiak-Kud?a & Kud?a, 2017). Such regulations may be present upon both governmental and non-governmental institutions.

In other words, the introduction of financial regulations has ensured that there is greater efficiency in the financial system and there is availability of financial products. The report in the first part of the assignment will be focusing on the aspects of literature review which is to be conducted on the basis of the two countries selected. The literature review will be concerning the regulatory financial market present in Singapore and Australia. The report will be revealing the regulatory problems which are faced by the companies and also segregates what are the different aspects of the regulatory market and who takes the major decisions (Young, 2013). The second part of the assignment will be dealing with the Regulatory capture theory which will be analyzing the regulatory markets of Singapore and Australia. In order to properly explain and relate the concepts with the two countries selected, the primary thing to understand is the meaning of capture theory and how the theory is useful (Brink, Lowe & Victoravich, 2013). Lastly the report will be ending with a conclusion which will be providing the results which are related to the comparison.

In the case of Australia, the IFRS standard were implemented with the primary focus to make the financial statements presentable, comparable, transparent and free from material misstatement. The standards were issued to make the accounting process a bit simple and accurate as well. The implementation of the IFRS standard were at first difficult to understand as such would be requiring proper understanding of the standard in order to carry out the treatments which were provided in the standard. This situation posed a problem for the management of the company, its shareholders and even the auditors of the company as they are used to following the old standard which the IFRS standards replaced. In addition to this, there have been other problems which are associated with the political and legal factors related to the implementation of IFRS standards. On the other hand, it can be taken as a opportunity of to develop additional skills and proper understandings of the treatments which are there in the IFRS standard (Ahmed, Neel & Wang, 2013).

Adoption of IFRS

The standard which are issued by the Singapore board which issues standard faces certain problems which are related to effective implementation of the standard. An example can be given of the FRS 115 which dealt with revenue structure. Many companies were having difficulties in implementation of the standard (Horton, Serafeim & Serafeim, 2013). As per the research conducted there are a majority of companies which are having difficulty in implementation of the standard as per the regulatory frame work of the business.

Australian Accounting Standard Board (AASB) is an agency of the Australian Government. The main purpose of the board is to look after the accounting process and also issues standards on the basis of which financial statements are prepared and a regulatory environment is created (Rahman, 2013). When the country adopted the accounting standard for the first time, minor adjustments were made which were related to removing certain items and adding more disclosure requirements. In the year 2007, AASB made certain kind adjustments in order to make the standard identical with the standards which were issued by IFRS. In addition to this, a new differential reporting system was introduced which stated that all accounting standards should be measured which are equivalent to IFRS standards issued. However, this reporting standard reduced the disclosures requirement of the standard.

In the case of Singapore, Accounting Standard Council (ASC) is responsible for the adoption of SFRS. The group of entities for reporting the entity under the common control is considered under common control which is based under a single customer (Low et al., 2013). The main use of the regulatory framework decisions is with the government agencies which are also under single customers. The important legislations which were present in SFRS is consistent with the view of IFRS and therefore a standard is to be issued by the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB). The financial statements are on the basis of which potential investors of the company takes important decisions. The various users of the financial statements of the company are creditors, debtors, stakeholders and the public at large.

The effective date on which Australia had adopted the IFRS’s standard was on 1^st January 2005. The adoption of the IFRS standard by the companies which operated in Australia went about smoothly and it was especially useful to record transactions which were related with not-for- profit organization (Perera & Chand, 2015). There still remains several scopes for improvements which can improve the quality of the reporting and also the cost effectiveness of the reporting framework.  In addition to this as the IFRS standard is an internationally followed standard therefore the users of the financial statements in Australia will able to follow and understand financial statements of foreign companies which follow IFRS standards.

Regulatory Capture Theory and its Usefulness

In the case of Singapore, the implementation of SFRS standard which are equivalent to the standard issued by IFRS. The accounting problems and issues are looked after by Accounting Standard Council (ASC). The recognition of the importance for the ASC has affirmed that Singapore financial reporting standard registered BTs: IFRS. The IFRS convergence, ISCA has depicted audit partners from different public accounting firms. The converging exercise is required to highlight the main considerations for the entities converging with the SG-IFRS (Ramanna & Sletten, 2014). The standard which are set by the boards are mandatory to follow when the companies are preparing financial statements.

The regulated capture theory was introduced by George Stigler who won the noble prize in economics for his work. The capture theory states that the process by which agencies regulate industries comes to be dominating with the industry requiring regulation. The regulatory capture takes place when the agency is formed in order to act in the best interest of the public (Carpenter & Moss, 2013). This acts in a way which can provide benefits for the common interest of the public. In simple words it can be said that regulatory capture is a form of government failure which takes place when a regulatory body which have been set up by the government to act in the public interest, engages in activities which are not in the interest of the general people. Instead the regulatory body acts on the behalf of certain political or commercial concerns of special interest groups that dominates the industry on which the regulatory body was charged of governance (Potter, Olejarski & Pfister, 2014). In such cases, the interest of the business or some political groups are given more preference and their interests are considered on a priority basis instead of the interests of the general public. The government agencies which are responsible for the regulation of a particular industry when gets captured are known as captured industries. Regulatory capture takes place because individuals or groups of people who have a high stake in a company is expected to react if the government brings about certain regulations in the Industries through implementations of policies which are guided by agencies. Such groups or individual will use all its resources and power to get the policies which are most favourable for the group or individual. This has been further seen to be providing benefit to the industry it is supposed to be regulating, rather than the public. The regulatory capture theory can be pointed out as a failure on the part of the government which occurs when the regulatory agency is created to act with the public interest instead of the advances from the political or the commercial concerns of special interests. The regulatory capture theory is a part of economic regulations which is picture of nowadays economic regulations which are placed by the government. The persons who are involved in a particular industry that is have significant interest in an industry are naturally to have interest in the control and regulations of the company. In addition to this, due to the interest of the public in particular industries or the activities of the industry, they have a close relationship with the agencies which are set by the government to regulate the same industry. For the effective regulation of the particular industry or activities, there should be appropriate understanding of the nature and policies of the company. The regulators who have been given responsibility for effective regulation of the industry might not act in the best interest of the public and use the advantage to secure their own personal gains out of the authority provided to them (Nepal & Jamasb, 2015).

The agencies which are created for the public interest are considered to be controlled by industries on whom the captured industries were charged. The situation which occurs in the case of regulatory capture agencies and the industries on which the capture was be to be made as a gamekeeper and poacher situation. In other words, it can be said that the agencies which were appointed to work in the best interest of the company becomes the threat and works against the best interest of the company. In other words, the agency ignores the role which was given to it due to some personal interests. The theory of regulatory capture is closely linked with the branch of public choice which is often stated as the economics of regulation; and economics in the speciality are critical for the conceptualization of the government regulatory intervention. The theory of regulatory capture is associated with nature of risks which are related to the agencies itself (Magat, Krupnick & Harrington, 2013). The various measures which can be given on the basis of the regulatory environment has been further able to related the different type the theories and suggest that these theories are to be protected from the outside influence as much as possible. The recent interpretations of the regulatory capture theory has been able to suggest on the mature democracies considered with the high levels of the transparency and the media which is exposed to the higher levels of corruptions. Regulatory capture is the core focus of the economics of regulation and they are of the view that the governmental regulations are implemented by the government for the overall public welfare and not for individual or group’s interest this shows that regulatory capture has a risk to overall welfare of the people. The measures which can be recommended for mitigating the capturing of agencies is through increased transparency of the agencies. The transparency of the agencies will be allowing the government to keep a track of the activities of the agency and also ensure that the regulatory powers which are given to the agency are not being misused by the agencies.

The analysis of the regulatory environment along with understanding what are the characteristic of a regulatory markets need to be done primarily. The first step is to identify the different types of environment which have regulatory environment. It also shows that IFRS Framework is not only helping the cost savings but also by helping in proper implementation of the financial reports. In general circumstances there have been several instances where the companies have benefitted with the implementation of the IFRS framework. These changes have been tracked when companies are seen to be controlled by the industries which were charged with the captured agencies. In several occasions the difficulties in the implementation of the NFP standards developed by the AASB has been favourable in the implementation of IFRS. An example of regulatory capture which has taken place in Australia. The taxi industry which operate in Melbourne faces such an issue. The operators are given extensive powers to collect the license taxes which are associated with the business and have an access to funds which are around half a million dollars. Such operators misuse their positions in order to extract personal gains from the power which they possess. Therefore it can be said that the capture theory is followed in the economy of Australia. 

The regulatory environment which were identified were able to comply with the medium sized environment which is needed to be disclosed as per the disclosure requirements of the standard. The literature review which was conducted on Singapore was able to identify the means which can be sued to provide benefits to the general public. The situation can be handled effectively if the Singapore government issues frameworks of statutory rules and regulations in order to combat the situation. The government of Singapore needs to make rapid changes in the financial regulatory environment of the country in order to facilitate fair regulatory practices in the country.

Conclusion

The report deals with the analysis of the regulatory markets of two countries which in this case is Australia and Singapore. After the analysis of the markets it can be said that in both markets IFRS Framework or SFRS framework has been implemented. The companies which are operating in Australia have mostly implemented the framework and the companies which are operating in Singapore will be following SFRS standards which are equivalent to the respective IFRS Standard. However, it is to be remembered that the handling and interpretation of the IFRS standard requires the people involved in the use of the method are fully aware of the bests and understand the framework for effective interpretation of the same. The problems which are there with the problems are associated with the proper understanding and proper training of the IFRS standard. The users of the financial statements which can face problems are investors, regulators, auditors as well as any interest party in the financial statement of the company. This is also considered as a major challenge for following the requirements of gaining addition skills for application and evaluation of IFRS. There is a problem of the SFRS which is recognized due to the challenges which are faced by the business which pertains to the introducing a new revenue standard. The significant findings on the working of regulatory environment have shown the first adoption of the IFRS as “Australian Accounting Standards, the AASB made some modifications to IFRSs, including removing some options and adding some disclosures”. In addition to this, in Singapore the Accounting Standards council (ASC) has the statutory authority for issuing SFRS adoption. The country’s progress towards the adoption of IFRS has been identified with Australia's adoption of IFRS being effective from 1 January 2005. In the case of treatment of NFP transactions, the IFRS framework is useful which was developed by AASB. In Singapore, ASC introduced SFRS which are Singapore’s equivalent of the International Financial Reporting Standard.

Reference

Ahmed, A. S., Neel, M., & Wang, D. (2013). Does mandatory adoption of IFRS improve accounting quality? Preliminary evidence. Contemporary Accounting Research, 30(4), 1344-1372.

Brink, A. G., Lowe, D. J., & Victoravich, L. M. (2013). The effect of evidence strength and internal rewards on intentions to report fraud in the Dodd-Frank regulatory environment. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 32(3), 87-104.

Carpenter, D., & Moss, D. A. (Eds.). (2013). Preventing regulatory capture: Special interest influence and how to limit it. Cambridge University Press.

Horton, J., Serafeim, G., & Serafeim, I. (2013). Does mandatory IFRS adoption improve the information environment?. Contemporary accounting research, 30(1), 388-423.

Low, S. P., Liu, J. Y., Ng, S. H. M., & Liu, X. (2013). Enterprise risk management and the performance of local contractors in Singapore. International Journal of Construction Management, 13(2), 27-41.

Magat, W., Krupnick, A. J., & Harrington, W. (2013). Rules in the making: A statistical analysis of regulatory agency behavior. Routledge.

Nepal, R., & Jamasb, T. (2015). Caught between theory and practice: Government, market, and regulatory failure in electricity sector reforms. Economic Analysis and Policy, 46, 16-24.

Perera, D., & Chand, P. (2015). Issues in the adoption of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES). Advances in Accounting, 31(1), 165-178.

Potter, M. R., Olejarski, A. M., & Pfister, S. M. (2014). Capture theory and the public interest: Balancing competing values to ensure regulatory effectiveness. International Journal of Public Administration, 37(10), 638-645.

Rahman, A. R. (2013). The Australian Accounting Standards Review Board (RLE Accounting): The Establishment of Its Participa

Ramanna, K., & Sletten, E. (2014). Network effects in countries’ adoption of IFRS. Accounting Review, 89(4), 1517–1543. https://doi.org/10.2308/accr-50717

Stachowiak-Kud?a, M., & Kud?a, J. (2017). Financial regulations and the diversification of funding sources in higher education institutions: selected European experiences. Studies in Higher Education, 42(9), 1718-1735.

Young, K. (2013). Financial industry groups' adaptation to the post?crisis regulatory environment: Changing approaches to the policy cycle. Regulation & Governance, 7(4), 460-480.