The Hong Kong Society of Accountants this week issued guidelines that make it more difficult for employers to misappropriate funds from retirement schemes.
The society has also finalised a framework for accounting that will have a sweeping impact on financial reporting in the territory.
This framework will, when implemented in the next few weeks, serve as an umbrella framework for all accounting standards in the territory.
Since the Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance was released in 1993, amid concern worldwide about the safety of retirement funds, authorities have been considering an accounting guideline making clear what details companies are required to disclose.
These attempts dragged on for more than three years, amid debate on whether various drafts of the document required too much disclosure.
Last year, a number of the territory's employer-sponsored schemes were in the process of filing their first annual reports under the terms of the ordinance.
The guideline was originally intended to be in place by the time such reports were released, but was delayed by the debate.
