Intangibles That Go Unaccounted for Spur Standards Board Refresh

Global standard-setters decided Thursday to refresh their out-of-date framework for how companies account for intangible assets like software and intellectual property that often aren’t quantified in financial statements.

All 14 members of the International Accounting Standards Board voted to begin a likely lengthy process to update existing intangibles accounting rules that date back 20 years. Their aim is to give investors more useful information about intangibles and to make accounting standards better suited to newer types of assets such as digital currencies and carbon credits.

“Many intangible assets aren’t recorded at the moment,” IASB chair Andreas Barckow said at ...