In this decision, the IASB followed its staff's recommendation included in an agenda paper for the meeting. The staff had argued that since IFRS 15 is a converged standard with US GAAP it would be "less confusing for the market if both IFRS and US GAAP preparers apply the new Standard at the same time". The US FASB has recently tentatively decided to defer for one year the effective date of its new revenue standard (ASU 2014-09 Revenue from Contracts with Customers) for public and nonpublic entities reporting under US GAAP. The IASB staff had also pointed out that the IASB is considering proposing some limited clarifying amendments to IFRS 15, so a degree of uncertainty regarding what IFRS 15 will finally look like exists until the IASB decides to either finalise, or not proceed with, these amendments. The staff also mentioned that even if these clarifying amendments have a different effective date than the standard itself, many entities might wish to apply the amendments at the same time as they first apply IFRS 15 to avoid repeated changes of their accounting methods.

The IASB granted these points and decided to propose to defer the effective date of IFRS 15 by one year to 1 January 2018. The IASB staff has been asked to prepare an exposure draft to this effect, which will be a stand-alone exposure draft only dealing with the effective date so it can be processed more quickly. The exposure draft will have a comment period of no less than 30 days and is expected to be issued in May 2015.

EFRAG's recommendation to the European Commission to adopt IFRS 15 without deferral of the effective date is not negatively affected by today's decision of the IASB as EFRAG recommends adoption of IFRS 15 in the European Union "with the effective date set by the IASB".

Please see also our observer notes from the meeting, our IFRS in Focus newsletter on the IASB's tentative decision and the IASB's corresponding press release.

Ms Lloyd began by stating the reasons why IFRS 9 is an improvement over IAS 39, such as combining all aspects of financial instruments accounting into one standard and enhanced disclosures. Next, she describes the loan model under IFRS 9 which requires “financial institutions and other companies to estimate and account for expected credit losses from when they first lend money or invest in a financial instrument.” She notes that although the IASB and FASB have worked together to create a converged model, the FASB has taken a different approach. Lastly, she comments that the implementation of the expected loss model for loan loss provisions will require significant changes to financial institutions and other companies' systems and processes, which is the reason why the IASB set the mandatory effective date to 1 January 2018.

For more in­for­ma­tion, see the report on the IASB’s website.

 Topics discussed at the meeting included:

• Forecasts of future economic conditions.
• Loan commitments — scope.
• Expected credit losses — measurement date.
• Assessment of significant increase in credit risk for guaranteed debt instruments.
• The maximum period to consider when measuring expected credit losses.
• Revolving credit facilities.
• Measurement of expected credit losses for an issued financial guarantee contract.
• Measurement of expected credit losses in respect of a modified financial asset.

For more information, and a summary of the discussions at the meeting, see Deloitte’s IFRS in Focus as well as the meeting summary on the IASB's website.

The event saw an opening address by Linda Mezon, Chair of the Canadian Accounting Standards, a eulogy to Harvey Goldschmid, who passed away in February 2015, by Michel Prada, Chairman of the IFRS Foundation, a keynote speech by Hans Hoogervorst, Chairman of the IASB, and a panel discussion "IFRS and Global Standards: A Canadian Perspective".

We already reported on the speech by Mr Hoogervorst who presented a mission statement for the IASB and the IFRS Foundation. A video recording of the whole event including the panel discussion has now been made available on the IASB's website. The whole recording is about one hour and twenty minutes long - the press release indicates the timing of each contribution. Please click to access the recording through the press release.

Mr Danjou split his speech into three parts. He began by looking at the mega-trends that shape the IASB's technical work. Globalisation, currency changes, high leverage and asset valuation problems, low interest rates, diversification, and key performance indicators, non-GAAP figures and disclosure overload were the trends he identified.

Mr Danjou then turned to the adoption of IFRSs around the world. He offered a general overview as well as more detailed analyses of several jurisdictions including Japan, China, India and the United States.

Finally, Mr Danjou turned to the question of whether the adoption of IFRSs in the European Union brought the expected benefits. His analysis was based mainly on the responses to the European Commission's public consultation on the impact of  IFRS in the European Union. He concluded:

I am confident that IFRS has delivered most of the benefits that were expected and that the initial costs of learning and implementing the system, while they have not been capitalised on the balance sheets of companies and investors, would not need to be written off if they had been.

Please click to access the full text of the speech on the IASB website.

In the paper the IASB staff makes the following recommendations:

In May 2014, the IASB and FASB issued converged standards on revenue recognition and also agreed a common effective date. However, in April 2015 the FASB tentatively decided to defer for one year the effective date of its new revenue standard (ASU 2014-09 Revenue From Contracts With Customers) for public and nonpublic entities reporting under US GAAP. The IASB staff is now asking the IASB whether it wants to follow suit in the light of issues discussed at the TRG meetings and intended clarifications as well as in order to keep up convergence with the FASB.

Please click to access the agenda paper on the IASB website. It offers the staff's recommendations, historical background, an explanation of what the FASB has decided, and a summary of IFRS stakeholder feedback.