At its meeting on April 9-11, 2019, the Board met to consider possible amendments to IFRS 17. The Board addressed the possible amendments in the following order: (a) overview of the amendments to IFRS 17; (b) due process steps, including permission for balloting; (c) sweep issues; and (d) Annual Improvements.

With respect to (a), the Board:

1. considered the proposed amendments to IFRS 17 as a whole;
2. evaluated each of the proposed amendments against the criteria the Board set in October 2018;
3. considered the likely effects of the proposed amendments to IFRS 17;
4. considered the due process steps undertaken by the Board in completing the narrow-scope project on the amendments to IFRS 17 and confirmed that it wishes to publish an exposure draft setting out the proposed amendments to IFRS 17; and
5. confirmed there are no planned dissents at this stage.

The Board also confirmed its tentative decisions from the November 2018 meeting relating to the mandatory effective date of IFRS 17 and the fixed expiry date for the temporary exemption in IFRS 4 from applying IFRS 9. The Board discussed additional stakeholder concerns relating to IFRS 17 (and IFRS 9) which have arisen in relation to the proposed amendments to IFRS 17 and tentatively decided that the effective date of the proposed amendments should be aligned with the effective date of IFRS 17 so that entities would be required to apply IFRS 17, and any proposed amendments, for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2022. The Board also tentatively decided that entities would be permitted to apply IFRS 17, together with any proposed amendments, for earlier periods.

With respect to (b), the IASB staff plan to seek permission from the Due Process Oversight Committee for a reduced comment period for the exposure draft of proposed amendments to IFRS 17. The staff also plan to ask the Board to set the comment period at its May 2019 meeting. The Board will also consider any additional sweep issues at that meeting. The staff expect that the exposure draft of proposed amendments to IFRS 17 will be published at the end of June 2019.

Review the IASB Update and podcast on the Board's Web site.