Case Study in Japan

Bank of Japan (BOJ)

Bank of Japan started examining XBRL for practical use in the middle of 2003 in order to make more efficient regular data transmission with private financial institutions, and after operation tests and development of tools, data transmission between BOJ and about 500 private financial institutions was put into practice in February 2006.

The scheme of BOJ data transmissions is as follows.

1. （1）BOJ prepares metadata such as taxonomy which is necessary for reporting job, and upload it on BOJ examination online (safe and efficient system connecting BOJ with other financial institutions through IP-VPN).
2. （2）A financial institution downloads the metadata through BOJ examination online, and put them in the PC which has an input tool installed in advance for XBRL data entry supplied by BOJ.
3. （3）A financial institution puts reporting data made by EXCEL in the PC, and with a simple manipulation, the data are converted to XBRL data.
4. （4）Errors of the converted data are checked by formula link, and financial institutions practice necessary modification, and send reporting data in XBRL to BOJ through BOJ examination online.
5. （5）BOJ put the XBRL data sent by financial institutions in the database, checks errors again in it, and utilize them for monitoring and making statistics.

By this scheme, BOJ develops necessary tools for making XBRL data, and supplies them to financial institutions for free. The tools are designed to be operated easily as much as possible. Moreover, there is a function of checking errors by formula link, the latest function of XBRL which enables financial institutions to eliminate errors before transmitting them to BOJ. It makes both financial institutions and BOJ easier to make accurate financial report and improve efficiency of office works. This scheme has been working well since BOJ started its operation, with no system troubles, and it is still improving with the change of the items of reporting data, renovation and additional taxonomy introduction. Furthermore, a new efficient office workflow is established taking advantage of the merits of XBRL. After four years of operation, BOJ is planning a new formula link reflecting the technological improvement of these years, and a version up of tools for data entry, which will lead to the improvement of workability. BOJ has also started a version up of the whole scheme by developing a new database which store submitted data efficiently, to fully utilize XBRL data for monetary policy. BOJ is intending to expand the items of data transmission and to deal with upgrading of related technologies. Through these activities, BOJ is going to promote the use of XBRL in financial business and contribute to the advancement of financial information exchange network.