Administrative simplification with XBRL The Belgian experience

1. Administrative simplification with XBRLThe Belgianexperience • Luc Dufresne • Advisor to the board of directors • National Bank of Belgium Beijing, 20 October 2010

2. Agenda • Administrative simplification in Belgium • The contribution of the National Bank of Belgium • The XBRL Project at the CBSO • The «Building Blocks» method • Success factors

3. Initiatives of Belgian authorities • Agency for administrative simplification (1997) • Promote entrepreneurship by measuring and reducing paperwork burden • Kafka online contact point (www.kafka.be) (2003) • Receive proposals on how to improve existing regulation • Kafka test (2004) • Monitor how new regulations create administrative burdens

4. Measures in favour of enterprises • Single identification number for companies • Creation of the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises • Single point of contact • Social Security Crossroads Bank • Abolition of paper bookkeeping • Electronic filing

5. Achievements • More than 200 regulationscancelled or simplified • Administrative costreduction for companies : - 31% on annual charges between 2000 and 2008

6. Currents projects • Authentic sources and "only once" gathering • e-filing • Adaptation of the European Directive on services in the internal market • Statistical surveys : further simplifications and development of a new filing system

7. Contribution of the National Bank of Belgium • Legal mission of reporting requirements • Initiatives in favour of administrative simplification • Contribution to the "e-government" project allowing all public administrations to access data from annual accounts • Statistical surveys • new filing procedures (CSSR) • structural survey : electronic filing with annual accounts

8. CBSO project - Legal context • Belgian transposition of European Directives • Legal missions • Gathering and individual spreading of annual accounts • Statistical processing of the information gathered • Most of Belgian companies must legally publish their statutory and consolidated annual accounts accounts • Terms of submission

9. The CBSO at a glance • 1978 Standardized model proposed to non financial companies • 1983 The models became mandatory • 1993 Introducing filing of annual accounts on floppy disk (text file with mandatory structure) • 2000 Spreading on microfilm abandoned in favor of images-CD (PDF file) • 2002 Supplying copies of filed annual accounts through the Internet • 2004 Filing annual accounts through the Internet

10. CBSO project - Why XBRL • New project for filing of annual accounts • Use of an international standard • Increase flexibility and reduce the maintenance costs • Harmonize the data format and exchange with other regulators XBRL

11. Processing of the annual accounts Output Data loading XBRL XBRL 98% PDF PDF Quality verification Images database Paper Data encoding Figures 2% Paper Data Statistics Scanning

12. CBSO project - Steps • 2005 First taxonomy presented to stakeholders • 2007 Launching XBRL filing

13. CBSO project - Steps • 2005 Presentation of the first taxonomy to the stakeholders • 2007 Launching of the XBRL filing. The floppy disk is abandoned • 2008 Copies (PDF files) on the Internet are free of charges • 2010 XBRL files free available on the Internet • 2012 ? Company report

14. CBSO project - Figures • Filing of statutoryannualaccounts in XBRL • As from April 2007 withreduction of filingfees • More than 350.000 annualaccounts / year • August 2010 – 98 % using Internet of which 96 % using XBRL % Floppy Internet Paper

15. CBSO project - Success factors • User friendly application to fill out and to file annual accounts • Transparent for end-users • Free of charge • Secured - with eID or other digital certificate • Communication • Website • Road shows towards accountants • Reducing filing fees

16. Output availability

17. CBSO project - Benefits • Benefits • For companies • Savings of 17,3 millions EUR / year • Potential to 37 millions EUR / year • For NBB • Maintenance costs • Standardized format

18. XBRL broadening • Harmonization of data exchange with other regulators • Through XBRL Belgium • Hosted by the National Bank of Belgium • Members are regulators as well as accountants institutes or private companies

19. XBRL Belgium - From objectives to reality Promoteharmonization of financial data exchange - Through operational projects like the filing of annual accounts or bank reporting 1 Coordinate initiatives - Collaborating with other regulators in developping new taxonomies 2 How 3 Development, spreading and taxonomies maintenance - "Building blocks" method

20. Interactions between projects Annual accounts Identification Data Identification Data Identification Data Specific Data Accounting Data - Annual accounts Accounting Data - Annual accounts Annual account Business Survey Tax Return Data Tax Return

21. Belgian building blocks model Specific entry points NBB Annual accounts taxonomies FPS Economy Business survey taxonomies FPS Finance Corporate Tax Return taxonomies Core Taxonomies Dimensions Data type Identification data Common building blocks

22. XBRL Project at the General Directorate Statistics and Economic Information • Project • Annual Survey for companies about their activity, employment, profits, investments • Basis for National accounts • Launching – November 2009 • Objectives • To reduce reporting burden for companies recovering information from annual accounts and asking only specific (missing) elements

23. XBRL Project at the General Directorate Statistics and Economic Information • Figures from the first year

24. XBRL Project at the General Directorate Statistics and Economic Information • Objectives achieved • Less companies contacted, • Form automatically filled in with information from annual accounts, • Software vendors able to produce XBRL output. • Lessons learned • Companies found the way to the Web application, • Manual encoding has been strongly reduced, • Work has changed: from encoding to heldesk, • Data are faster handled and available.

25. XBRL Project at the FPS Finance • “Corporate tax Return” project related to the tax processing for companies • Objectives • Reducing administrative burden related to reporting obligations for companies • Facilitates the "integrated processing" of Tax activities • Improving information exchange between government agencies

26. Added value of XBRL • Overview • Important step towards a harmonized format among the Belgian regulators • Enhance the transparency of the financial information • Long term objectives • Reducing administrative burden for the companies asking information only once • Cutting down on fraud through immediate cross-checks between tax declaration and annual accounts

27. Succesfactors • Building blocks method • Creates opportunities of cooperation • Improves coherence • One owner of each building block • Consistency will further be assured by a Taxonomy Recognition Working Group • Importance of the communication • On websites • With software vendors • With end-users

28. Conclusion • XBRL was a good choice • Cost reduction for companies : 17,3 millions euros (potentially 37 millions euros) • Synergies with other regulators accelerated • Best practices in administrative simplification • "Ask only once" principle • General use of Information and Communication Technology for data collection

29. Thank you for your attention