At their joint meeting last week, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) reaffirmed their commitment to improve International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (U.S. GAAP), and to bring about their convergence, according to a new release. The Boards also agreed to intensify their efforts to complete the major joint projects described in their 2006 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), as updated in 2008. (See “Ready, Set, Converge” in BVWire#72-2.)

Today, as a further affirmation of that commitment, the IASB and FASB issued a joint statement describing their plans and milestone targets for completing the major MOU projects in 2011.The 23-page statement also describes the values and principles underpinning the Boards’ collaboration and significant successes achieved thus far. In last week’s announcement, the two Boards also committed to monthly joint meetings and “to provide transparency and accountability by providing quarterly updates on their progress on convergence projects.” The Boards will hold their next joint meeting by videoconference later this month.