Investors tell accounting's standard setter: explain intangible assets before you book more of them
Research for the rewrite of IAS 38 finds users of accounts prefer better disclosure to putting more home-grown intangibles, data among them, on the balance sheet.
Picture made for ABUREAU.
The International Accounting Standards Board is reconsidering IAS 38, the standard for intangible assets, which keeps most things a company builds itself, its data included, off the balance sheet. On 19 May 2026 the Board discussed what investors and analysts told its staff.
The message was cautious. According to the staff paper for the meeting, most users preferred enhanced disclosure to expanding the recognition of internally generated intangible assets, citing worries about judgement, earnings management, auditability and comparability. The staff still suggested a targeted review of the existing recognition rules, because companies make very different judgements about what to capitalise.
For data owners, the practical reading is that company books will not start showing the value of data soon. What may come first is clearer disclosure of what a company spends building it. Until then, a value for data is found the way it always has been: by what someone will pay to use it.
