Various efforts to set standards for the valuation of financial instruments have been attempted, but ‘investors, regulators, chartered accountants, and the banks are unified since the last financial crisis,’ says Gavin Francis, HSBC’s chief accounting officer in London and past technical director of the IASB. Francis is chair of the newest International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) division, the Financial Instruments Standards Board, which also includes Raj Brar (Bank of England) and Daniel Kahn (EY), plus many others. ‘Every entity has financial instruments sitting on their balance sheets, from relatively easy-to-value cash through to complex structured derivatives,’ says Francis. ‘Each needs robust, consistent, and reliable valuation standards.’ The IVSC interview with Francis about the goals of the new board is available here.