On April 18, 2018, CFA Institute announced some significant developments related to the timeline for GIPS 2020, the next edition of the GIPS standards, as well as the status of several guidance statements that are currently pending adoption.
First, it was announced that the development of GIPS 2020 is on schedule and a list of significant upcoming dates was provided:
- August 31, 2018 – the GIPS 2020 Exposure Draft is expected to be issued for public comment, excluding the section on verification.
- October 31, 2018 – an exposure draft of the verification section of GIPS 2020 will be issued separately for public comment.
- December 31, 2018 – both comment periods will close.
- June 30, 2019 – the final version of GIPS 2020 is expected to be adopted and released.
- January 1, 2020 – GIPS 2020 will become effective. Any new requirements will need to be implemented by GIPS-compliant firms and incorporated into any firm materials that include performance results for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2020.
Additionally, it was announced that all guidance statements that have been issued for public comment but that have yet to be formally adopted and/or made effective will be delayed until following the completion of the GIPS 2020 project. These include:
- Guidance Statement on Broadly Distributed Pooled Funds
- Guidance Statement on Overlay Strategies
- Guidance Statement on Risk
- Guidance Statement on Benchmarks
- Guidance Statement on Supplemental Information
- Guidance Statement on Verifier Independence
The delayed adoption of these guidance statements should not be interpreted as implying that the proposed changes that they address will be discarded. Rather, the key concepts addressed in the proposed guidance statements will be incorporated into the GIPS 2020 exposure draft. The GIPS 2020 development process is then, in turn, expected to introduce new concepts that will feed back into the final versions of the guidance statements, which will be adopted following the completion of GIPS 2020.
For more information, please see the notice published on the GIPS standards website: https://www.gipsstandards.org/news/Documents/april2018.pdf
