International accounting principles and financial instruments: an analysis of Banca d'Alba Group and Cassa di Risparmio di Asti Group

International accounting principles are a set of standards that are adopted at an international level in the preparation of financial statements. They are developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and their aim is to create common accounting practices in order to improve the comparability of companies' financial statements. The IASB issued three international standards related to financial instruments: IAS 32, IFRS 9 and IFRS 7. The first one, IAS 32, provides guidance on the presentation of financial instruments in financial statements. IFRS 9 establishes the criteria for their recognition and measurement, and the requirements related to the impairment process and hedge accounting. Finally, IFRS 7 prescribes the information that needs to be disclosed. The aim of this thesis is to provide an overview of these standards and analyse how they have been implemented by two Italian unlisted banking groups: Banca d'Alba Group and Cassa di Risparmio di Asti Group.