European Financial Reporting Advisory Group reports users want more granular and comparable disclosure of intangible assets and spending

The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) published a summary report of its November 2025 workshop series, held in collaboration with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), on users’ information needs for reporting on intangibles. The report concludes that information currently available in financial statements is widely viewed as insufficient to understand how intangible assets contribute to value creation and future performance. The workshops covered software, artificial intelligence, data resources, algorithms and digital platforms; research and development, patents and unpatented technology; marketing and customer or supplier-related intangibles such as brands, trademarks, internet domains and customer lists or relationships; and intellectual property including copyrights and broadcast rights. Participants called for a mix of qualitative explanation and quantitative detail, including greater disaggregation to separate investment from maintenance spending, clearer linkage to future cash flows, and improved transparency on risks, governance and potential impairment triggers. Users also pointed to inconsistent capitalisation practices, limited comparability, and difficulty reconciling narrative disclosures with reported numbers, leading analysts to rely on alternative sources and make their own adjustments. EFRAG positioned the initiative as input to the IASB’s Intangible Assets project, which is assessing users’ information needs for intangible assets and related expenditure.