Converging next month on Vancouver, Canada, will be aninternational assembly of regulators, institutional investors,equity exchange executives, banks, CFOs, controllers and othersenior finance executives to discuss XBRL and other ways to makebusiness data more interactive, reliable, timely and accessible.The keynote at the global conference will be U.S. Securities andExchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, who has consistentlybeen a strong advocate of XBRL and the modernization of the SEC'sEDGAR system.

In recent years XBRL has gone global with the Chinese governmentrecently mandating its use and the Japanese government requiringcompanies to file in XBRL by April 2008. According to the XBRLInternational Consortium, 550 of the world's largest technology,accounting, financial services and government regulatory agenciesin 30 countries–including the IRS, Microsoft, Deutsche Bank, theFDIC, IBM, AIG and the International Accounting Standards Board–areinvolved in the development and use of XBRL. Speakers at theVancouver conference to be held Dec. 3 through 6, reflect theinternational nature of the technology. Besides Cox, they include:Ontario Securities Commission Chairman and CEO David Wilson; PaulMadden, the program manager for standard business reporting at theAustralian Treasury; Jose Maria Roldan, the director general ofbanking regulation for the Bank of Spain; Usha Narayanan, theexecutive director of the Exchange of India; and ToshinoriKobayashi, director of enforcement of corporate disclosures at theJapanese Financial Services Agency.