The financial crisis has highlighted three primary lessons for accounting standard-setters.

First: The integrated nature of capital markets, combined with the mobility of capital itself, highlights the need for a commonly accepted set of accounting standards.

Second: Financial institutions, regulators and investors failed to understand adequately the risks being taken. Accounting should play an important role in assisting all parties in this regard. Accordingly, there is a need to provide additional transparency to the risks being taken by financial institutions and provide meaningful information to investors and regulators.

Third: The current accounting rules create numerous options, which reduce comparability and add unnecessary complexity. Accordingly there is an urgent need to address the accounting for financial instruments to reduce complexity, enhance comparability and relevance and provide a basis for convergence worldwide.

We at the IASB are taking actions on all of these fronts.