Key Takeaways from XBRL Europe’s Digital Reporting in Europe Conference
Last week, the Digital Reporting in Europe conference, organised by XBRL Europe and Eurofiling, took place in Paris. The event brought together regulators, standard setters, financial institutions, and technology providers to discuss the future of digital reporting across Europe.
In addition to attending the conference, BM&A Advisory and RegTech was pleased to contribute to the programme through a presentation on 20 Years of XBRL: Reflections and Expectations. Drawing on our experience supporting banks and financial institutions with regulatory reporting, we shared practical insights on the evolution of XBRL adoption, current industry challenges and good practices for strengthening the regulatory reporting process. Key themes included the importance of treating XBRL as part of the wider regulatory data chain, aligning internal data models with regulatory taxonomies and embedding reconciliation and control checks throughout the reporting lifecycle.
While the agenda covered a wide range of topics, several themes stood out for organisations involved in financial, regulatory and sustainability reporting.
IReF: Progress towards integrated regulatory reporting
The Integrated Reporting Framework (IReF), led by the European Central Bank is a key initiative shaping the future of regulatory reporting in Europe. During the conference, an update was provided on the project’s progress, and the ECB has now published its implementation plan, confirming the transition of IReF from the investigation phase to the realisation phase. The plan outlines key milestones, including a pilot phase between 2026 and 2028, the start of IReF reporting in the second quarter of 2030, and a one-year parallel reporting phase ahead of the first official reporting in the second quarter of 2031.
IReF aims to harmonise reporting requirements and establish a more integrated approach to regulatory data collection across European institutions. For banks, the publication of the implementation plan provides greater clarity on the roadmap ahead.
IFRS 18 and preparing beyond the financial statements
One of the most anticipated developments discussed at the conference was the implementation of IFRS 18.
While much attention is being given to the accounting implications, several speakers highlighted the impact on ESEF and XBRL reporting. Changes to the presentation of financial statements and disclosures will require updates to taxonomy mappings and digital reporting processes.
For reporting teams, IFRS 18 should therefore be viewed not only as an accounting project, but also as a digital reporting transformation initiative.
CSRD and ESRS: Data quality starts at source
Discussions on CSRD implementation highlighted a challenge many organisations are currently facing: sustainability data is often collected through fragmented processes and inconsistent methodologies.
Several examples were shared where reporting issues could not be solved during the tagging phase because the underlying data lacked sufficient structure or governance.
The message was clear: successful digital sustainability reporting starts long before XBRL tagging begins.
ESAP: A new era for corporate transparency
The European Single Access Point (ESAP) continues to move closer to reality.
Once implemented, ESAP will provide investors, regulators and market participants with a centralised access point for financial and sustainability disclosures across Europe.
This development increases the importance of high-quality XBRL tagging. The objective is no longer simply to submit compliant reports but to ensure information can be searched, compared and reused efficiently within a European reporting ecosystem.
FRC highlights common digital reporting quality issues
One of the most practical sessions covered findings from the UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC) review of structured digital reporting.
The review concluded that most organisations are producing compliant filings, but recurring issues continue to appear around tagging consistency, governance and review processes. The FRC emphasised that many of these issues can be avoided through stronger ownership of tagging decisions and earlier quality reviews.
As reporting increasingly becomes machine-consumable, the quality of structured data is becoming just as important as the quality of the narrative report itself.
This aligns with one of the points highlighted during BM&A’s presentation: many reporting issues originate upstream in the reporting process rather than during the final XBRL generation stage. Strong controls, reconciliations and ownership remain critical to producing high-quality digital reports.
AI reinforces the need for structured data
Artificial Intelligence was impossible to avoid throughout the conference.
What was particularly interesting was the broad consensus that AI does not reduce the importance of structured reporting. In fact, it increases it.
Whether used by regulators, investors or reporting teams, AI systems require consistent, reliable and machine-readable information to generate meaningful insights. Poor-quality data remains one of the biggest obstacles to successful AI adoption.
Interoperability remains a priority
Several speakers discussed ongoing efforts to align reporting frameworks, including ESRS, ISSB, SASB and GRI.
The objective is to reduce duplication while improving consistency across financial and sustainability reporting. As organisations face increasing disclosure requirements, interoperability will be critical to managing reporting complexity and reducing operational burden.
Conclusion
One message that emerged both from the conference discussions and BM&A’s own presentation is that XBRL should no longer be viewed as a standalone reporting requirement. It forms part of a broader regulatory data chain that begins with data sourcing and governance and ends with high-quality, machine-readable reporting. Organisations that adopt this end-to-end perspective will be better positioned to respond to future regulatory developments and increasing demands for digital reporting.
