ESMA Updates Taxonomy for Implementation of ESEF Regulation
ESMA published the updated ESEF XBRL taxonomy files to reflect the 2019 update of the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) Regulation (2019/2100). The update is intended to facilitate implementation of the ESEF Regulation by providing XBRL taxonomy files that are compliant with all relevant technical and legal requirements in the updated ESEF Regulation. The publication of the ESEF XBRL taxonomy files is accompanied by the publication of a set of documentation material presenting their architecture and content.
The ESEF taxonomy is based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) taxonomy, which the the IFRS Foundation prepares and updates annually, and provides issuers with a hierarchical structure to be used to classify financial information.. As the IFRS standards evolve, the ESEF Regulation and the corresponding ESEF XBRL taxonomy files evolve accordingly to provide preparers with the most relevant taxonomy for tagging the IFRS) consolidated financial statements. The taxonomy is made up of a set of electronic files (ESEF XBRL taxonomy files) providing a structured representation of the elements that substantively constitute the core taxonomy. The ESEF taxonomy includes minimum changes (extensions or customizations) compared to the IFRS taxonomy prepared by the IFRS Foundation. The human-readable labels of the core taxonomy, listing and defining the specific elements that preparers can use to tag the information disclosed within IFRS consolidated financial statements, have been included in Annex VI of the consolidated version of the ESEF Regulation.
The ESEF taxonomy directly imports full IFRS taxonomy elements and links to their references and labels in the English language (including, among other things, documentation). However, the IFRS taxonomy presentation, definition, and calculation relationships are customized in the ESEF taxonomy, rather than directly imported. To reflect the principle-based nature of IFRS standards, ESMA decided to enable preparers to create extensions in a controlled manner. Therefore, contrary to the fixed taxonomies, the ESEF taxonomy is flexible and it intended to be used as a starting point for issuers to create their own taxonomies. The regulatory technical standards on ESEF require that issuers identify themselves using the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). Therefore, the XBRL International LEI taxonomy has been also imported in the ESEF taxonomy to provide the means to report and verify the validity of the LEI used by the issuer to identify itself in the Inline XBRL document.
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Keywords: Europe, EU, Banking, Securities, Insurance, Taxonomy, ESEF, ESEF Regulation, IFRS Taxonomy, XBRL, Regulatory Technical Standards, LEI, ESMA
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