Are K2 guidelines sufficient and credible for credit assessments?

Abstract: Title: Are K2 guidelines sufficient and credible for credit assessments? Course: BUSN69 Degree Project – Master of Accounting and Auditing Authors: Ali Mansour Firouz & Sina Attaran Advisor: Dr. Amanda Tan-Sonnerfeldt Five key words: Credit assessment, Financial statements, K2 guidelines, Banks, Auditing Purpose: To what degree do K2 guidelines affect the usefulness of the financial reports for banks making credit assessments for companies reporting according to K2. Methodology: Throughout the completion of the thesis, a qualitative method has been used with interviews as a primary source. Additionally, a triangulation in the form of audit firms as expert interviews has been corroborated. The secondary sources used are articles, literature and information located on the Internet. Theoretical perspectives: The use of theory in this study has not been to develop but to understand the phenomena of the usefulness of the reports to the banks. Therefore we have drawn from several theories and described the regulatory environment and literature review to try to explain and understand this phenomena. Empirical foundation: The empirical foundation of this thesis is based on interviews with seven banks and four audit firms as expert interviews. Conclusion: K2 guidelines do not affect the usefulness of the financial reports to any large extent, as there is much more information found outside of the regulation that is of importance to banks making credit assessments.