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The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) recently published its plans to significantly scale up its efforts to raise the standards of governance, culture, remuneration and accountability (GCRA) across financial institutions.

Corporate governance has been a hot topic of discussion in Australia for many years – spearheaded by Royal Commissions, drilled home by corporate law changes to charge company directors with more responsibilities, and demanded by consumers and shareholders holding companies to a higher standard of behaviour and transparency.

Last month, the Government released its implementation roadmap accepting all 76 of the Royal Commission’s recommendations plus committing to an additional 18 actions.

IFRS News is a quarterly publication by the Grant Thornton International Financial Reporting Standards team and it provides a global insight into developments in International Financial Reporting Standards. These developments have a direct impact on Australia since our standards mirror the international ones, albeit with a slightly different numbering system.

In January 2016, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued IFRS 16 Leases which represents the first major overhaul in lease accounting for over 30 years.

In addition to the publication of the IFRS quarterly newsletters, the IFRS team at Grant Thornton International releases from time to time special edition newsletters that focus on major IFRS developments. While these newsletters are written from an IFRS perspective, they are relevant to the Australian environment as Australian Accounting Standards incorporate IFRSs issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. If you have any queries regarding these special edition newsletters please don’t hesitate to contact your local Grant Thornton office.

‘Culture eats strategy’ has become accepted business wisdom. But is it possible for dynamic companies to maintain their unique culture and appeal as they expand and avoid the growing pains that affect so many firms?

The Corporate governance report 2017 provides practical recommendations for boards to consider when working with leadership teams in order to successfully develop a strong corporate culture.

As the Australian Government continues to focus on the way it taxes Significant Global Entities (SGE), there’s a lot for businesses to navigate to ensure they are meeting all requirements in a coordinated and effective way.

The Australian Government has introduced a new funding system for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the ‘ASIC Industry Funding Model’, which will pass on greater compliance costs to Australian businesses.

The Australian corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has recently written to over 1,000 proprietary companies enquiring whether their annual financial reports should’ve been prepared, audited and lodged with ASIC in accordance with the requirements of Corporations Act 2001.

Navigating changes to IFRS for CFOs: a high-level summary of recent changes to IFRS that will affect companies' future financial reporting. Changes are colour coded to help Chief Financial Officers identify the changes that will affect them most.