The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have said they’ll step up the rulemaking pace and stick to their original timeline of converging major accounting rules by mid-2011.

The two-boards published a 23-page update to their convergence plan, promising to meet monthly to assure the job gets done on time and provide quarterly updates on their continued progress. They acknowledged the concerns expressed by the Group of 20 nations that a globally accepted single set of accounting standards would resolve a lot of problems in global capital markets. “We are redoubling our efforts to achieve a single set of high-quality standards within the context of our respective independent standard-setting processes,” the boards wrote.

The boards originally set a June 2011 target date to resolve major differences between U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Standards and International Financial Reporting Standards to facilitate the adoption of IFRS in a number of countries in 2011. They also acknowledge convergence and continued improvement in accounting standards is a big consideration in the United States as the Securities and Exchange Commission considers whether, when, and how to require U.S. companies to begin switching over the IFRS.

The two boards have plenty of work ahead of them to meet the mid-2011 target date. They need to wrap up major standard-setting projects on financial instruments, consolidations, derecognition, fair-value measurement, revenue recognition, leases, financial instruments with the characteristics of equity, financial statement presentation, and a handful of other individual and joint projects outlined in their original agreements.

In their joint statement, FASB and IASB said their work on financial instruments in particular has been difficult because each board had “differing project timetables” to respond to their respective constituents. The boards say they plan to issue final standards by the end of 2010 “that represent a comprehensive and improved solution to this complex and contentious area and that provide international comparability.”