FASB chair: Demand high for digital assets project

Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Richard Jones said that, over the course of its agenda consultation process, stakeholders have communicated that a project to permit or require companies to account for certain digital assets at fair value should be a “top priority.”

Speaking at Baruch College’s Financial Reporting Conference, Jones said that the board has heard these concerns and is currently in the preliminary stages to determine a good path forward. So far, he said, the board has noticed many commonalities between digital assets and commodities, which might lead to overlap in approaches between the two. (Jones recently shared his thoughts on other aspects of FASB’s agenda with Accounting Today.)

“Currently, we are looking at digital assets and commodities because in many cases they do have certain things in common: They’re actively traded, they’re viewed as exchanges of value between parties, and they’re often exchange-traded,” he said.

Jones said that research on this matter is going to be brought before the board this month. In particular, given the commonalities with commodity assets, FASB will consider whether there’s enough overlap beyond digital assets where it would make sense to have a single accounting model, and if so, what that model might look like.

The FASB is also engaged in research related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related transactions and government grants. Jones also said he expects a final standard on disclosures of supplier finance programs in the near future and a proposed standard on segment reporting in the third quarter. He added that the project on intangibles and goodwill continues to proceed apace and that FASB plans to soon meet with the IASB to discuss the matter further.