The heads of KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and Deloitte, plus two global mid-tier firms have joined forces in Paris to call for an overhaul to the way companies report financial performance.

The Big Four plus Grant Thornton and BDO said the financial reporting model of the last century has become redundant and proposed that static quarterly financial statements be replaced by real-time, Internet-based reporting, including a wider range of performance measures.

‘We believe the current model is broken,’ KPMG International chairman Mike Rake told the FT.

‘There are significant shortcomings to US GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and issues of concern with international financial reporting standards.

We're not in a very happy situation,’ he said.

The six accounting leaders had been working on the proposals for more than a year, the FT reported.

Further reading:

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Investors blast convergence of US and international standards

Multi-nationals handed standards reprieve