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Federal banking regulators issued supplemental guidance to financial institutions on how they should account for and report on commitments to originate and sell mortgage loans (www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/bulletin/). The institutions are required to determine which of these commitments are derivatives under FASB rules and then calculate and report their fair value. But inadequate compliance with the FASB rules has prompted the regulators—the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision—to provide this additional guidance on applying FASB Statement on Standards no. 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, as amended by FASB Statement no. 149.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) approved guidelines for insurers and pension funds to strengthen public confidence in the insurance industry and protect pensions from mismanagement and fraud (www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/10/34799740.pdf; www.oecd.org/dataoecd/). Both sets of guidelines draw from the corporate governance principles the OECD created in 1999 and revised in 2004.

The AICPA launched the Accounting Education Center (www.aicpa.org/aec), a Web site that provides educators with resources to enhance accounting and business curricula and to recruit and prepare students for entering the profession. The AICPA Core Competency Framework and Educational Competency Assessment Web site are among those offerings. The center also provides information on scholarships, awards, work-life effectiveness and the professional advancement of women and minority-group members. Other resources include access to an online discussion forum for accounting educators and links to information on professional conferences, accounting and auditing literature, reports and studies as well as membership in the Institute.

The AICPA launched 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy for Women, an expansion of its pro bono efforts to improve the public’s understanding of personal finance. The program’s Web site (www.360financialliteracy) contains more than 600 articles and planning tools women can use to focus on various aspects of their economic circumstances, including getting started on managing their finances more effectively, career planning and employee benefits, managing insurance and investments, coping with family financial issues and life-changing events and setting up and running a business. In addition, the site’s “Ask the Money Doctor” tool offers free personal finance advice from CPA/PFS practitioners and other volunteers with financial planning expertise.

The SEC launched a program that enables registered securities issuers to voluntarily furnish XBRL-formatted data as part of filings they are required to make through the SEC’s electronic data-gathering, analysis and retrieval (EDGAR) system. The commission established the program to help itself and issuers determine the extent to which XBRL can improve the accuracy of information and help streamline its flow through their organizations. Details on the program are available at www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl.htm.

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) member Daniel L. Goelzer said in a recent speech that Sarbanes-Oxley Act section 404 compliance costs will fall and benefits rise, especially if certain principles become better understood in the marketplace (www.pcaobus.org/news_and_events/events/2005/speech_text/04-29.asp). He emphasized that internal control audits require professional judgment and that auditors should advise clients on accounting and control issues, focus on higher risk areas with potential for material findings, integrate financial statement and internal control audits and bear in mind that small companies don’t need the same types of controls or audits as their larger counterparts.

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) released an exposure draft of proposed International Education Standard (IES), Competence Requirements for Audit Professionals (www.ifac.org/eds), to ensure auditors have the knowledge, skills, values, ethics and attitudes to perform competently. The proposed IES will apply not just to audit engagement partners but to all accountants responsible for making significant contributions to an overall audit opinion. Comments are due July 15, 2005.

The AICPA Personal Financial Planning (PFP) Executive Committee has been tracking the SEC’s activities relating to its final rule, “Certain Broker-Dealers Deemed Not to Be Financial Advisers” (www.sec.gov/rules/final/34-51523.pdf), which exempts certain fee-based broker-dealers from the provisions of the Investment Advisors Act of 1940. The SEC is conducting a study to determine how best to reduce investor confusion regarding the rule and whether to make changes in the regulations governing broker-dealers and investment advisers. Meanwhile, the committee continues to monitor the SEC’s activities regarding the rule and the study, and it seeks members’ comments on how the rule will affect their brokerage, investment advisory or financial planning practices. Send comments to rryan@aicpa.org.

The IRS is holding CPE-eligible tax forums to keep tax professionals up to date on its policies and programs (www.taxforuminfo.com). Topics to be addressed include like-kind exchanges, estate and trust planning, identity theft, small-business retirement plans, alternative minimum tax and recent tax law changes. Forums will take place in Houston (July 12-14), Atlanta (July 26-28), New York City (August 9-11), Las Vegas (August 23-25) and Chicago (August 30-September 1).

The SEC named Linda Chatman Thomsen director of its division of enforcement. She had served as deputy director since 2002.

Timothy S. Kviz and Joseph B. Ucuzoglu began two-year terms as professional accounting fellows in the SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant. Both are senior managers—Kviz in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Florham Park, N.J., office and Ucuzoglu in Deloitte & Touche’s Wilton, Conn., office. They will develop rule proposals under federal securities laws, communicate with professional accounting and auditing standard-setting bodies and consult with SEC-registered companies on accounting and reporting matters.

The SEC began releasing at no charge all comment and response letters relating to disclosure filings made after August 1, 2004, and reviewed by the divisions of corporation finance and investment management. The documents are available through the EDGAR system at www.sec.gov.