The Critical Aspect on Using Fair Value for Financial Instruments

The variety of the book-keeping practices, of the financial auditor, of the fiscal norms and rules, can have a negative impact, not only on the companies’ ability in furnishing the needed and true financial information to the creditors and investors, but also on the capacity to analyze the future investment opportunities regarding the financial instruments, which are vital for the economic increment. Under the Accounting Standard for Financial Instruments, fair value measurement is required in certain circumstances similar to IFRS or US GAAP. There are also specialists who criticize the limited use of fair values in IFRS. However, those criticizing fair value accounting do not seem to provide any credible alternatives. Do we go back to historical cost accounting, wherein the financial assets are stated at outdated values and hence are not relevant or reliable? In the current crisis, a question that is raised is: Should financial instruments be marked down to their current throw away prices? This paper describes how the fair value is used under the Standard and purposes to decide whether fair value measurement is required or not based on the type of investment.