LA DISCLOSURE SUGLI STRUMENTI FINANZIARI SECONDO GLI IFRS. PRINCIPI GENERALI E PROFILI APPLICATIVI

I investigate the disclosure for financial instruments by banks in order to evaluate the compliance with IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: disclosure. This study is relevant for the following reasons: i) banks are widely acknowledged to be largescale users of financial instruments; ii) Italian banks have to apply mandatory disclosure imposed by Bank of Italy. I analyse the financial statements of thirty-five Italian banks for the fiscal years 2006 and 2007and I compute an index disclosure based on the IFRS 7 requirements. In the 2006 IFRS 7 was not compulsory, thus I verify the evolution of disclosure quality ante and post the first time adoption. The results show the improvement of the disclosure quality for financial instruments, although there is still a lack concerning fair value and financial risk reporting.