The GIPS Standards are ethical standards for calculating and presenting investment performance based on the principles of fair representation and full disclosure. They are voluntary industry standards that provide transparency and global comparability in a world where regulations and market practices differ significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
IMAS is the Singapore Country Sponsor for the GIPS Standards, and we are responsible for promoting and furthering the progress of the GIPS standards in Singapore. IMAS strongly encourages all its members to comply with the GIPS standards and perform verification.
The GIPS standards are developed, maintained, and promoted through the collaboration of individual volunteers from the investment community, CFA Institute, and GIPS Standards Sponsors in over 40 markets.
The GIPS Standards ensure fair representation and full disclosure of investment performance. These principles lead firms to avoid misrepresentations of performance and to communicate all relevant information that prospective clients and investors and oversight bodies should know in order to evaluate past results.
The latest version of the Standards, the 2020 GIPS Standards, includes three documents dedicated to three user groups: Asset Owners, Firms, and Verifiers.
In addition, the CFA Institute has published a GIPS Handbook, which reflects the updated GIPS provisions adopted in 2020 and provides updated interpretive guidance for each provision, as well as applications and selected questions and answers.
The GIPS standards are helpful to organizations that prepare investment performance reports as well as investors who receive such reports. They provide transparency and global comparability in a world where regulations and market practices differ significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
The GIPS Standards benefit asset managers through the following:
Organizations that claim compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards are required to notify CFA Institute of their claim of compliance by submitting a GIPS Compliance Notification Form. Organizations that are newly claiming compliance must submit the GIPS Compliance Notification Form before publicly claiming compliance. Once an organization claims compliance, it must submit an updated GIPS Compliance Notification Form annually, between 1 January and 30 June of each year.
