M2M-Fair Value Accounting

Since the past 20 years, the value relevance of financial information based on the historical cost method has been widely criticized among the academics and the preparers of financial information. The ongoing debate over the shortcomings of historical cost for ascertaining the worth of assets and liabilities and the rapid spread of fair value measurement for financial reporting has first led to the issuance of Financial Accounting Standard No. 157 Fair Value Measurements in September 2006 and then the initialization of fair value measurement project by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board in 2006 within the convergence project. On May 12, 2011, when the IASB issued IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement, it appears that there has been substantial convergence between IFRS 13 and FASB 157. The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively explain the fair value accounting in accordance with IFRS 13 and describe the types of assets and liabilities that are subject to fair value accounting and their accompanying measurement principles with reference to other IFRSs and the Exposure Draft Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting.