In an earlier blog, we had talked about XBRL adoption in India. While the progress has been slow, it is tangible and steady. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has mandated that the filing of Annual Report and Cost Audit Report by regulated entities must be in XBRL. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has an XBRL programme for the banking industry. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) also has a mandatory XBRL reporting regime for mutual funds.

Now, one of India’s leading exchange groups and the oldest stock exchange in the South Asia region, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is joining the league and is following the footprints of the MCA and the RBI by moving towards eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) based reporting. XBRL (for the benefit of those who are visiting us for the first time) is an electronic format for communication of business and financial data. Indian institutions are adopting the XBRL format to bring about more transparency in reporting and to harmonise the Indian Capital Market with the International standards.

BSE has made an official announcement of adoption of XBRL based reporting for online filing of shareholding patterns and has launched a facility of XBRL based reporting for Shareholding Pattern w.e.f. June 12, 2015. Clause 35 of the Equity Listing Agreement (Clause 37 of the SME Listing Agreement) has mandated that all the companies listed on BSE file their Shareholding Pattern (SHP) for every financial quarter with the Stock Exchange, as per the format prescribed by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). With the acceptance of XBRL based reporting, BSE will become the first stock exchange in the country to introduce and implement XBRL based reporting.

BSE will make available a free Excel utility which will facilitate the generation of XML files and upload the generated XML file on the BSEs Listing Center portal. For this purpose, an additional option “XBRL” is being made available in the “Listing Center portal” by the Bombay Stock Exchange.

BSE is likely to introduce the XBRL filing facility for submissions for other disclosures under other clauses of the Listing Agreement very shortly. At present, BSE is receiving such disclosures in the form of PDF documents or in physical format which are then manually entered into a database for further processing and analysis. By implementing XBRL reporting, BSE will also enhance its monitoring of regulatory compliances with more speed and accuracy. Investment analysts can save effort and greatly simplify the selection and comparison of data, thereby deepening their analyses of companies.