Who Needs to Understand IVS? It’s Not Just Valuers

The International Valuation Standards are written for the professionals who carry out valuations — but they were never only for them. Every valuation has users: people who commission it, review it, audit it, regulate it, or make decisions on the strength of it. For each of these groups, IVS literacy is the difference between accepting a number and understanding it.

Auditors and financial reporting teams

Fair value measurements flow through financial statements, and audit teams must challenge the valuations that support them. Knowing what IVS requires — a defined scope of work, an appropriate basis of value, documented approaches and inputs, quality control and review — gives reviewers a principled checklist for that challenge.

Lenders and investors

From real estate lending to private credit, valuations underpin lending decisions and portfolio reporting, including in markets where observable prices are scarce — a theme the IVSC has explored in its article on private credit valuations. Understanding the standards behind a valuation helps credit and investment teams ask sharper questions about assumptions, data and uncertainty.

Regulators and supervisory authorities

As more jurisdictions reference IVS in regulatory frameworks — see our overview of IVS around the world — supervisory staff need working knowledge of what the standards require in order to oversee compliance effectively.

CFOs, in-house counsel and deal teams

Anyone commissioning valuations — for transactions, disputes, tax or reporting — benefits from knowing what a compliant process looks like, what to specify in the scope of work, and what a well-documented report should contain.

Students and early-career professionals

For those entering valuation, finance or accounting, structured IVS knowledge is a differentiator: it is the shared international language of the field they are joining.

A common foundation

This breadth is exactly why the IVSC designed its introductory course for those who “prepare, review, use, or rely on” valuations. One structured orientation, the same shared reference point — whichever side of the valuation you sit on.