The SEC has announced open data enhancements that not only facilitate innovation but also allow all market participants access to financial statements and other disclosures prepared by public companies on its Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system.
This marks the first time the SEC has released Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that collect financial statement data. This makes accessing corporate disclosures easier and more efficient for developers and third-party services to use by providing tools to use the data programmatically. APIs also allow developers to design web or mobile apps that directly serve retail investors.
The APIs are free and provide access to EDGAR submission history via filer and eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) data from financial statements. These statements include annual and quarterly reports, Forms 8-K, 20-F, 40-F, and 6-K, with additional datasets anticipated in the future. Throughout the day, the SEC updates APIs in real time as EDGAR submissions are made public. A bulk ZIP file makes it possible to download all the API data and is updated and published again each night.
To provide a period of public testing and comment, APIs were accessible for beta testing prior to this current release. Visit the EDGAR API documentation page at sec.gov to learn more about the APIs.
Sources:
SEC Enhances Access to Financial Disclosure Data (sec.gov)
