This report provides an overview of accounting practices of financial institutions in Europe in selected areas related to financial instruments. It evaluates the level of comparability and quality of the disclosures in the 2012 IFRS financial statements of a sample of 39 major European financial institutions and includes recommendations to enhance the transparency of financial information through the application of the IFRS provisions.

Transparent financial information plays a key role in maintaining market confidence, improving markets’ efficiency by allowing investors to identify risks in a timely manner, contributing to financial stability and is a pre-requisite in creating premises for sound economic growth. As an effect of market turbulences resulting from the financial crisis, transparency and comparability of the financial statements of financial institutions have gained increased importance for market participants. In this context, ESMA has intensified its reviewing activities, with an increased focus on the financial statements of financial institutions and together with EBA and ESRB has undertaken further initiatives to improve the level of confidence in the financial sector by asking financial institutions to provide better disclosure of financial and risk information in financial reporting.

Overall ESMA found that disclosures specifically covered by requirements of IFRS 7 – Financial Instru-ments: Disclosures were generally provided and acknowledges the efforts made by financial institutions to improve the quality of their financial statements. Yet, ESMA observed a wide variability in the quality of the information provided and identified some cases where the information provided was not sufficient or not sufficiently structured to allow comparability among financial institutions. Some financial institutions provided disclosures that were not specific enough, lacked links between quantitative and narrative information, or provided disclosures that could not be reconciled to the primary financial statements. ESMA urges issuers to take a step back and consider the overall objectives of IFRS 7 against their specific circumstances when preparing disclosures.

When information was provided outside financial statements (e.g. in a risk report or business review), in some cases it was unclear whether it was incorporated by reference. In general, users of financial infor-mation would benefit if information provided in different sections of the financial report were linked to each other and if information provided across these reports was consistent or major differences in bases used to provide this information were explained.