Ahead of publishing a revised financial instrument accounting standard this month, chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board Sir David Tweedie has said failure to have changed it last year would have led to 'market meltdown'. In an interview with Accountancy, Tweedie said that against a backdrop of the economic crisis last year the IASB had little time to pull the revisions together. 'Had they [the EU] just carved it out there would have been no rules. Companies would have been able to do what they liked. It would have been meltdown in the markets,' he said. Political pressure from September's G-20 summit in Pittsburgh resulted in the US standard-setter the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the IASB committing to speed up working towards a global set of accounting standards, a move the US Securities and Exchange Commission has now said it will make 'priority'. Chairman of the FASB Bob Herz told an audience at an International Financial Reporting Standards conference last month that the SEC will be re-examining IFRS 'next fall'. Tweedie remains 'optimistic that we can overcome our current differences,' as the standard-setters step up the number of meetings being held between them.