Financial Reporting Practices in the European Banking Sector: Financial Instruments and Fair value

From January 1, 2005, the accounting standards applicable to publicly traded European banking institutions will be the standards issued by the IASB. The purpose of this paper is twofold. From a sample of nineteen European banking institutions, we first study the characteristics of this fair value voluntary information from 2000 to 2002. This research is based on a contents analysis of the voluntary information disclosed (frequency tests). Then the most representative factors of the informational structure are settled by means of a factor analysis.