In FY2008, Japan will put into practical use the world's first infrastructure to be used in the financial sector. The infrastructure is eXtensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, which is a XML-based language to be used for financial reporting.

Many software makers are soon expected to develop tools that will allow users to easily analyze various financial data written in XBRL. Thus, it seems that even individual investors would benefit from XBRL without necessarily knowing it.

The Financial Services Agency (FSA) has recently launched a system called Electronic Disclosure for Investors' NETwork, or EDINET. This system allows users to browse on the Internet various documents, including financial statements and the documents which investors holding more than 5% of the issued shares of any single company are required to submit to the agency.

To facilitate the use of this system, the FSA has required companies and investment funds to submit to the agency XBRL-based financial statements starting this business year beginning in (or after) April.

The target of this mandate includes listed companies, more than 4,700 unlisted companies with a capital of more than 500 million yen and 500 investors each, and about 3,200 investment funds.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) is offering a database service called TDnet. The service allows users to browse (via the Internet) timely disclosure data of the companies listed on the stock exchanges across the country. Starting this October, the TDnet users will be able to browse even the front page and summary of the companies’ statements of accounts written in XBRL.

XBRL is an information language designed to enable computers to recognize account titles, such as sales and sales cost, and others. Financial statements written in XBRL would make it possible for computers to process numerical information described in the financial statements as if they could understand each figure's meaning.

This means that a computer would be able to calculate automatically financial indicators, such as the turnover ratio of capital and labor's relative share, even if users do not input necessary figures and calculating formulas into the computer.

Traditionally, in order to perform such calculations, it was necessary for users to set up the formulas in the spreadsheet software and input the figures into those formulas.

By using XBRL, computers would be able to process any kind of financial statements automatically, once users define the calculating formulas in their computers.