EC letter to IASB on IFRS 9
14 Nov 2009
The European Commission has posted on its website a letter from Jorgen Holmquist, Director-General of the Internal Markets and Services Directorate, to IASB Chairman Sir David Tweedie, indicating that the Commission has concerns about IFRS 9 and encouraging the IASB to 'revisit the key elements of its proposal having a more direct impact on the right dividing line between 'fair value' and 'cost' accounting and on financial stability (in areas such as the key role of business model, the scope of the OCI category and the recycling of gains/losses, and the prohibition of bifurcation of embedded derivatives)'.
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Overall, we take note of a number of changes addressing issues raised in our letter of 15 September. However, it would seem that the current draft may not yet have struck the right balance between 'fair value accounting' and 'amortised cost accounting', and may lead to more instruments being classified at fair value through profit or loss compared to the existing IAS 39, thus potentially exacerbating income volatility – even if the impact will vary from one entity to another, depending on their business model and the type of financial instruments in their balance sheet. Concerns therefore remain about the way in which the IASB has defined the classification criteria set out in the draft. |
