Now that the largest public companies in the U.S. are scheduled to begin filing their financial statements using Extensible Business Reporting Language data-tagging technology this year, financial regulators are weighing additional areas to leverage the technology, said industry representatives at an XBRL International Conference in Paris.

Mark Bolgiano

“This is the start of Act II in the U.S.,” said XBRL USA CEO Mark Bolgiano on a conference call with reporters. Besides requiring public companies and mutual funds to begin filing information in XBRL, the efforts could go beyond that, with transactions involving mortgage-backed securities as well as proxy statements also showing signs of moving to XBRL. XBRL authorities are beginning to work with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., the Society for Worldwide Interbank Finance Telecommunication, and the International Standards Organization to move more corporate transactions to structured XBRL reporting.

The conference attracted over 400 attendees from 40 countries, according to XBRL International CEO Tony Fragnito, and highlighted the growing profile of XBRL in Europe in particular, with representatives of XBRL Europe saying 46 projects are underway across the continent.