XBRL RBI Statutory Return Reporting for Reserve Bank of India

Everything in the world is turning to XML. Federal Bank’s reporting across the global is also accepting the XML based XBRL reporting.  XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a freely available and global standard for exchanging business information. XBRL allows the expression of semantic meaning commonly required in business reporting. The XBRL Specification is developed and published by XBRL International, Inc. (XII). XLBR is a standard way of communicating and exchanging financial statement to the Federal Banks

These communications are defined by metadata set out in taxonomies which capture the definition of individual reporting concepts as well as the relationship between concepts and other semantic meaning. As a part of the regulatory and supervisory functions of the RBI, RBI collects various fixed formatted data (called ‘Returns’) from Commercial Banks, financial institutes, authorized dealers and non-banking financial institutions. Many of these returns are statutory requirement of RBI act 1934, Banking Regulation Act 1949 etc.  These returns are filed using  conventional forms   like hard copies send through postal services, faxes, PDF file send via email etc.  RBI has provided  with Online Return Filing System. This is a single window for return submission using the power of Internet. It is secured since RBI has incorporated digital signatures and exclusive network security has been implemented. All fortnightly reporting Friday returns are file in the site http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_orfs.aspx. Currently there are around 58 reports namely and their taxonomies are also available for download at the RBI site. Even returns for Capital Adequacy  is file in the same site.

Name of the return

Form 'A'

IX

VIII

BAL

GPB

FTD

FIIS

LRS

MV

FVCI

IOFHNI

FCTRS

CPR

STL

IRS

MAP

SIR

RIS

XBRL Integration with Current Data 

     

How Does XBRL Work?

About Tags

XBRL is a data-rich dialect of XML (Extensible Markup Language), the universally preferred language for transmitting information via the Internet. It was developed specifically to communicate information between businesses and other users of financial information, such as analysts, investors and regulators. XBRL provides a common, electronic format for business reporting. It does not change what is being reported. It only changes how it is reported.

A typical business report on an Internet page is a closed and self-contained document. Although it can be viewed and transmitted using the Internet, its format and content is fixed; neither the format nor the content can be changed unless you change the Internet page.  As a result, to extract the information from such a report for computerized analysis requires exporting or re-keying the data into a format that can be handled by computer software.

A business report that has been prepared using XBRL is known as an instance document, and it is different to a standard business report. The information contained in the instance document is not closed and does not have a predefined, fixed format. The data can be used interactively because it can be accessed, extracted and processed automatically by computers. This instructiveness is made possible by the use of tags.

In  XBRL information is broken down into unique data items. These data items are then assigned tags eg <CurrentAssets > </CurrentAssets >. Computers can treat information that has been tagged using XBRL ‘intelligently’,  they can recognize, process, store, exchange and analyze it automatically using software. Since XBRL tags are read and processed by computers, rendering software are used to convert the XBRL tags in an instance document to present the information in a human-readable format, such as a statement of financial position, return report or a cash flow statement. Since XBRL tags are formed in a universally-accepted way by Federal Banks as standard formats, they can be generated, read and processed by any Core Banking Application that has XRBL parsing capabilities.

An example of a statement line item and the corresponding XBRL tag has been using IFRS

On the left-hand side excerpt, the company’s current assets are listed as six line items of text as they would appear in a statement, starting with Assets, Current assets, Cash, etc, and ending with Total current assets.

The right-hand side excerpt displays the same information from the same statement. However, the formatting has been removed to reveal the computer-readable XBRL tags concealed beneath the human-readable report.

<ifrs:CurrentAssets contextRef="AsOf2009" unitRef="EUR">671629000</ifrs:CurrentAssets><ifrs:Cash contextRef="AsOf2009" unitRef="EUR">28700000</ifrs:Cash><ifrs:TradeAndOtherCurrentReceivables contextRef="AsOf2009"unitRef="EUR">585548000</ifrs:TradeAndOtherCurrentReceivables><ifrs:Inventories contextRef="AsOf2009" unitRef="EUR">57381000</ifrs:Inventories>

 This can be parsed as

Assets Current Assets  Statement As of 2009 In EUR Currency  Cash 28,700, Trade and other current receivables 585,548 Inventories   57,381. Total current assets 671,629

About Taxonomies 

XBRL are defined and organized using categorization schema’s called taxonomies.

Taxonomies are the computer-readable ‘dictionaries’ or schema of XBRL. Taxonomies provide definitions for XBRL tags, they provide information about the tags, and they organizse the tags so that they have a meaningful structure.

As a result, taxonomies enable computers with XBRL software to:

• understand what the tag is (eg whether it is a monetary item, a percentage or text);

• what characteristics the tag has (eg if it has a negative value);

• its relationship to other items (eg if it is part of a calculation).

This additional information is called meta-data. When information that has been tagged with XBRL is transmitted, the meta-data contained within the tags is also transmitted.  Taxonomies differ according to reporting purposes, the type of information being reported and reporting presentation requirements. Consequently, a company may use one taxonomy when reporting to a stock exchange, but use a different taxonomy when reporting to a securities regulator. Taxonomies are available for most of the major national accounting standards around the world.

For a Bank to report Returns in RBI format, RBi has published tags for all RBI Friday reports. These tag are contained within  the taxonomy available to download from the Reserve Bank of India ORFS site

Returns of Capital Adequacy : http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_rca2.aspx#

Form A : http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_FormA.aspx

Gap Position and Balances  (GPB): http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_GPB.aspx

Form X Returns : http://orfs.rbi.org.in/orfs_FormX.aspx