Financial Statements

Credit loss disclosures: challenges for banks

This summer I attended the IFRS Foundation Conference in London, looking forward particularly to a session on IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers. This panel was chaired by Mary Tokar (IASB Member and former global leader of the KPMG International Financial Reporting Group), who has not only excellent technical knowledg […]

Investors call for better communication in Financial Reporting

Everyone understands that the IFRSs must be constantly refreshed in response to a fast-changing world. Over the last eight years, investors’ interests in financial reporting and supporting information has shifted from achieving short term goals to creating sustainable, long term value. Therefore, the need to update the quality and effectiveness of the communic […]

Debt restructuring under IFRS 9: changes you may have missed

IFRS 9 has now been applicable for over a year, but some of its changes have often been either overseen or neglected—even when they could have a material impact on the accounts. One of these is the treatment of non-substantial modifications of financial assets or financial liabilities when amending contractual terms within a restructuring transaction. There is […]

Materiality in IFRS: it’s on

Several major new IFRS standards have become effective recently or will do so soon and, as is the case for every new standard, these will mean changes and new requirements not only for accounting treatments but also for disclosures. Altogether, there will undoubtedly be a lot of additional work for both financial statement preparers and their auditors. Theref […]

Disclosing judgements under IFRS: a guide

As you may have noticed, IFRS accounting is often not straightforward. Preparers frequently lose time digging through IFRS literature to decide how to account for a transaction. A few particularly grey areas would be: consolidate an entity or not (IFRS 10) equity versus liability (IAS 32) investment property or owner-occupied one (IAS 40) lease cla […]

Why it’s still hard to get comfy with IFRS 10

The hype today around IFRS 9 and 15 is, at times, reminiscent of how IFRS 10 was received when it went live five years ago. One might hope that the hype fades in proportion to how clear and comfortable the new standard becomes—but what is real state of IFRS 10 in terms of its challenges, changes, and complexity? Given that IFRS 10 was a “fresh” standard […]