IASB decides on IFRS 17 effective date
16 Nov, 2016
The IASB has just voted on the effective date of the forthcoming IFRS 17 'Insurance Contracts', which will be 1 January 2021.
The IASB followed the reasoning of the staff that assuming IFRS 17 is issued in the first half of 2017 the 2021 effective date would allow 3.5 to 4 years from the issuance of IFRS 17 to the mandatory effective date. The Board also decided that an entity may apply IFRS 17 before 1 January 2021 but cannot do so unless it also applies IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers.
The 2021 effective date also means that entities applying the deferral approach, which permits an entity to apply IAS 39 rather than IFRS 9 for annual reporting periods beginning before 1 January 2021, can continue to do so right until the new insurance contract becomes mandatorily effective.
