The Monitoring Board of the IFRS Foundation has announced a new assessment approach for its membership criteria and plans to review existing members every three years.

This is in line with plans to expand the membership of the board by the end of 2013.

Consistent with its 2012 governance review, any new members of the board have to be actual users of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and also a capital markets authority responsible for setting the form and content of financial reporting in its jurisdiction.

The original criterion that members must be committed to supporting the development of high quality international accounting standards was expanded by requiring that a member's commitment be demonstrated by the use of IFRS in the jurisdiction's capital markets and participation by the jurisdiction in Foundation funding.

The board also confirmed that it will instigate a periodic review of existing members every three years, starting in 2013, with possible ad hoc reviews as appropriate. However, the review will not be totally independent but more based on self-assessment. In a statement, the Monitoring Board said the review would 'start with a self-assessment by each member, complemented by additional information and data from other sources'.

The decision was taken at a board meeting in Brussels earlier this month with IFRS Foundation chairman Michel Prada, which was called to discuss foundation funding and the creation of the new global standard-setters group, the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF).

At the same time, Masamichi Kono, current acting chair of the Monitoring Board, was named as chairman.

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