IASB Meeting — 7-8 February 2019

Start date:

End date:

Location: London

IASB (International Accounting Standards Board)

Overview

The IASB met in London on 7-8 February 2019.

The Board decided to propose amending IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement to provide relief from the effects of uncertainties caused by the reform of IBOR. The Board will consider in March whether the relief should be optional. The Exposure Draft is likely to have a short comment period, enabling any amendments to be finalised and published by December 2019, with an effective date of 1 January 2020.

The Board continued to assess concerns and implementation challenges raised by stakeholders about the requirements in IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts. The Board decided to propose amending that IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 allow an entity to apply either IFRS 17 or IFRS 9 to insurance contracts for which the only insurance in the contract is for the settlement of some, or all, of the obligations created by the contract (with consequential amendments to the disclosure requirements). The Board decided that the transition requirements in IFRS 17 be retained, except for a liability that relates to the settlement of claims incurred before an insurance contract was acquired. The Board decided to propose a change to the modified retrospective approach that would require an entity to classify such liabilities as a liability for incurred claims (to the extent that it does not have reasonable and supportable information to apply a retrospective approach) and to permit an entity applying the fair value approach to choose to classify such liabilities as a liability for incurred claims.

For the Primary Financial Statements project, the Board decided to modify some of its earlier decisions. Within the statement of cash flows, the starting point for the reconciliation of operating cash flows should be the operating profit subtotal, for all entities. Additionally, all entities should classify cash flows from dividends paid as financing cash flows and cash flows from dividends received from equity-accounted associates and joint ventures as investing cash flows. However, the Board also decided on some special requirements, for both the statement of cash flows and the statement(s) of profit or loss and other comprehensive income, for entities that have as their main business activity providing financing to customers or investing in assets that generate a return individually and largely independently of other resources held by the entity. The Board also approved additional proposals related to aggregation and disaggregation of information in the primary financial statements and in the notes, including a requirement to describe items in a way that faithfully represents the items they aggregate.

The Board considered a project plan for a comprehensive review of the IFRS for SMEs Standard that proposes the publication of a Request for Information by about July 2019, an Exposure Draft sometime between January 2020 and February 2021 and amendments between July 2021 and May 2022. The IFRS for SMEs Standard does not reflect the current requirements in IFRS 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 or 17.

The staff also gave an oral update on the projects on Management Commentary project.

 

Agenda for the meeting

Thursday 7 February 2019 (9:30-16:45)

  • IFRS for SMEs – review and update
  • Managements commentary – oral update
  • Primary financial statements
    • Classification of income and expenses by financial entities
    • Outstanding issues on the statement of cash flows
    • Additional proposals on aggregation and disaggregation
  • Amendments to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts
    • Loans that transfer significant insurance risk
    • Transition — Optionality and comparative information
    • Transition — Risk mitigation option and amounts accumulated in other comprehensive income on transition
    • Transition — Modified retrospective approach

Friday 8 February 2019 (9:30-11:30)

  • IBOR reform and the effects on financial reporting

Agenda papers for this meeting are available on the IASB's website.

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