Accounting for Financial Instruments - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Cormac Butler (London, UK & Hong Kong) is currently an active equity and options trader and a former consultant with Lombard Risk Systems London and has also worked with Peat Marwick and Coopers & Lybrand. He has presented the Accounting for Financial Instruments course for Euromoney for 8 years and worked as a consultant on financial instruments for a major accountancy firm. He has also led seminars with major banks including Salomon Brothers, Robert Fleming and Banque Paribas. He has recently conducted in-house courses for Morgan Stanley, PricewaterhouseCoopers (Holland), Investec (South Africa) and ABB (Switzerland). In addition, he has worked for IIR and Euromoney in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, America Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Cormac graduated from the University of Limerick, Ireland with a degree in Finance. He is the author of Mastering Value at Risk (Financial Times Pitman).

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Regulators, credit rating agencies and accountants have come under increased pressure to reveal why they allowed financial institutions to take huge concealed leveraged exposures, creating a price bubble and a subsequent government bail out. Already investors are calling for major changes in the way that financial instruments are regulated and accounted for.

Accounting for Financial Instruments is designed to address the practical difficulties that accountants and auditors face when dealing with complex financial instruments. Accounting rules have been slow to catch up with the advent of complex derivative instruments, while the need for an improved accounting framework in financial institutions is greater than ever in view of the current financial crisis. The author makes use of practical examples (including extracts from accounts) and case studies to give depth to his analysis of various issues in accounting for derivatives, including:

The influence of corporate governance on accounting for financial instruments

The impact of IFRS and IAS accounting standards on the detail and implementation of accounting procedures for financial instruments

The differences in European and American accounting standards in tackling the problems of off-balance sheet accounting

Accounting for credit risk

The role of accounting and auditing in the detection and prevention of fraud

Accounting for insurance

Hedge Accounting

The influence of Basel II

Accounting and Reconciliation

This works combination of discussion and practical examples makes it a useful reference for accountants dealing with these products. It provides guidance on expected future regulatory changes in accounting for these instruments, and is a valuable exposé of the weaknesses in accounting procedures. It will be of interest to accountants, auditors, compliance officers, and anyone working with derivative products.

Aus dem Klappentext

"Cormac skilfully covers the accounting for derivatives and hedging activities in a clear and succinct manner. This book provides a firm basis for understanding the strengths and shortcomings of the current standards on financial instruments, highlighting them with a good number of real life examples. This is one of the few accounting books available on the market that make a complex and dry subject understandable and even enjoyable. "

Juan Ramirez, BNP Paribas, author of Accounting for Derivatives

Cormac Butler has written a very timely book, with fair value accounting being heavily criticised as a major contributor to the recent banking crisis. More generally, accounting for complex instruments and practices such as securitisation is neither simple nor widely understood. This book is an extremely lucid and full account of the myriad of current practices, which explains why financial institutions can declare a range of profits in the same situation. Whilst covering a wide canvas, Cormac has also made the topic very readable with many interesting case-studies. I would strongly recommend this book to anybody wishing to understand how modern financial instruments are treated by the accountants.

Richard Flavell, author of Swaps and other Derivatives.