Digital Financial Reporting

The SEC announced its successor for the old EDGAR system: IDEA, Interactive Data Electronic Applications).  See the SEC web site.

The press release for the announcement can be found here.  A web cast of the announcement can currently be found here.  (It may be moved here eventually)

IDEA is a new technology/architecture framework.  It is being built along side EDGAR.  The two systems will operate alongside each other for a period of time, then IDEA will be the system used moving forward.  EDGAR information will likely always exist as an archive of company information.

The SEC says IDEA will be global (40 languages as an example), cheaper for smaller companies, the platform for 21st century disclosure, flexible, and easy as possible for investors to use.

The SEC also says that they are not going into the software business, but "e-applications" can be built on top of the interactive data within IDEA.  The SEC gave examples of three applications which would make use of IDEA:  HUB (enforcement tracking), RADAR (analysis of risk), PHOENIX (helps get money back to investors).

No intermediate step of a data provider will be necessary.  Investors will be able to compare companies in a manner similar to how they can compare hotels or airline ticket prices.  Investors may even be able to provide "reviews" of companies.