IFRS 18 is designed to give investors more transparent and comparable information about companies’ financial performance, enabling better investment decisions, following complaints from investors about a lack of transparency about financial performance.

It will affect all companies using IFRS accounting standards and will improve the usefulness of information presented and disclosed in financial statements, but will entail costs for implementation and ongoing compliance.

The new standard replaces IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements, although it retains many requirements from IAS 1 unchanged.