The director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mrs. Aruma Oteh has called on quoted companies on the stock exchange to comply with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) before 2015.
This, Oteh said, would ensure that they are globally accepted as far as standards are concerned.
Oteh, who made this remark at the recent IFRS forum organised by Systems Applications Products (SAP) in Lagos, Nigeria with the theme “A Catalyst for Accelerated Business Growth”, said the SAP event came at a time when expectations are high from the local and the international communities on the financial performance of companies in line with International Financial Reporting Standards.
She said this would reflect the corporate financial visibility of the quoted companies and also pave the way for foreign investors to understand their balance sheets better, thereby increasing their business growth and productivity.
And speaking on the initiatives adopted by SAP in ensuring that companies conform to IFRS policy, Mr. Olivier Delcourt, business development manger, SAP, stated that SAP offers solutions to help them make a smooth, phased transition or convergence by providing a unified approach based on the company’s NetWeaver technology platform which supports all major architecture.
Delcourt said the SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution supports a broad variety of consolidation and business combination methods compatible with IFRS.
He explained that SAP Business Object governance, risk and compliance solution, enables companies to integrate enterprise data and processes, delivering insight to better align business strategies and achieve financial excellence adding that IFRS has to be adopted by companies in the different sectors of the Nigerian economy and that SAP has put in measures that would hasten that development, like it did to EcoBank Transanational.
Delcourt added that SAP Business Objects software has helped hundreds of customers around the world to achieve faster time compliance, reduced reporting times, decreased consolidation time, improved transparency and visibility, enhanced compliance and increased productivity.
To cope with the changes that IFRS adoption brings, he said an organisation needs a reliable, transparent and repeatable process that maximises productivity, achieves transparency, minimises cost of compliance and increases overall financial results.
All these, he said, are the ingredients that SAP is set to deliver to the Nigerian market.
By Okoro Chinedu
Pls, i would like 2 know how many Nigerian firms have converted 2 ifrs