Financial Instruments and Institutions: Accounting and Disclosure Rules - Hardcover

Ryan, Stephen G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470040378 ISBN 13: 9780470040379

Publisher: Wiley, 2007

Synopsis

This book is an authoritative guide to the accounting and disclosure rules for financial institutions and instruments. It provides guidance from a “fair value” perspective and demonstrates the simplest and most natural measurement basis for reporting financial instruments, as is relevant for thrifts, mortgage banks, commercial banks, and property-casualty and life insurers.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Financial Instruments & Institutions

Accounting and Disclosure Rules

Second Edition

Financial reporting for financial instruments and institutions is undergoing a period of unprecedented change and relevance for financial analysis. In the past decade, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has issued major standards on derivatives and hedging, transfers of financial instruments including securitizations, servicing of financial assets, consolidation of special purpose/variable interest entities, hybrid financial instruments, financial guarantees, and fair value measurements.

Now in a Second Edition updated to reflect the many significant changes in financial reporting rules, regulations, and economic conditions that have occurred since the publication of the first edition, Stephen Ryan's Financial Instruments and Institutions: Accounting and Disclosure Rules provides users and preparers of financial reports with the tools necessary to construct as coherent a story as possible about how firms generate or destroy value using financial instruments.

This book equips professionals to fully exploit the various sources of information about the fair value and risks of financial instruments and explains how "fair value" provides the most natural measurement basis for reporting financial instruments. It contends that users of financial reports do not need to know all of the myriad details involved in each financial reporting rule, but rather only the critical features that make or break the representational faithfulness of the reports.

Precise, clear, and helpful, Financial Instruments and Institutions, Second Edition examines six types of financial institutions in detail:

• Thrifts

• Mortgage banks

• Commercial banks

• Lessors

• Property-casualty insurers

• Life insurers

These institutions were chosen because each reflects specific financial transactions in a clear fashion and/or because each has distinctive accounting or disclosure requirements. Financial Instruments and Institutions describes the activities and risks of each in an economically grounded yet intuitive fashion, using numerous cases from actual financial institutions' financial reports to illustrate when fair value accounting for financial instruments works well and when it is fragile.

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Financial Instruments & Institutions Accounting and Disclosure Rules, Second Edition

"Financial Instruments and Institutions is a superbly informative integrated treatment of institutional, analytical, and financial reporting issues for financial institutions. I strongly recommend the book for analysts, investors, regulators, educators, and anyone with an interest in a coherent, intellectually rigorous discussion of issues encountered in reporting on and analyzing financial institutions and their commercial arrangements, including fair value measurements, risk reporting, and structured finance."
―Katherine Schipper, Thomas F. Keller Professor of Business Administration, Duke University

"When you combine the unique risk attributes of financial institutions with the complex transactions they enter into, it can make even the most seasoned investor shudder. Dr. Ryan provides a well-structured and logical approach to the analysis of these companies, layering on explanations of the transactions they enter into and how they impact your analysis. Seasoned investors will find the book an important reference tool, especially on securitizations and derivatives and the new chapter on reinsurance."
―Janet L. Pegg, CPA, Accounting & Taxation Research, Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.

"Stephen Ryan's book is indispensable for anyone involved with financial institutions, whether it be bankers, insurers, investment advisors, or the student. There is no better book for understanding how these institutions work and how one handles their financial statements to gain that understanding. The detailed coverage of financial instruments―and the accounting for financial instruments―is outstanding."
―Stephen Penman, George O. May Professor and Morgan Stanley Research Scholar, Columbia Business School

Praise for the First Edition

"To any professional engaged in hands-on analysis of financial institutions' financial statements, this exhaustive text is an indispensable resource."
―Martin S. Fridson, CFA, Financial Analysts Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0470040378
• ISBN 13: 9780470040379
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 528