In September 2016, the IASB issued Applying IFRS 9 'Financial Instruments' with IFRS 4 'Insurance Contracts' (Amendments to IFRS 4) providing two options for entities that issue insurance contracts within the scope of IFRS 4: the so-called overlay approach and the so-called deferral approach.

The OSFI has now decided that all regulated insurance companies that are eligible for the IFRS 9 deferral must use it. This way, OSFI ensures that all insurance companies eligible for the IASB deferral will adopt on the same date while fully respecting the IASB's scope. In the past, OSFI has repeatedly used the means of limiting choices or not permitting early adoption as a way of keeping the Canadian reporting landscape homogeneous and financial statements comparable.

Please click to access the notice on the OSFI website.

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have announced a project to review the disclosure of risks and financial impacts associated with climate change. The project will gather information on the current state of climate change disclosure in Canada and internationally as disclosure practices of public companies in relation to climate-related risks and financial impacts have attracted significant international attention in recent years with several voluntary disclosure frameworks available. Please see the press release on the CSA website for more information.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has published a linkage document showing how the GRI Standards can be used to comply with all aspects of the European Directive on the disclosure of non-financial and diversity information. The linkage document can be accessed on the GRI website.

The GRI has announced that translations of the GRI Standards into Indonesian, Japanese, Spanish, traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese are under way with final versions expected between April and June 2017. Translations into Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and simplified Chinese are planned, however, GRI is still looking for sponsors and/or peer reviewers. More information is available on the GRI translations page.

The GRI Chief Executive and the Founder and CEO of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) have published a joint article explaing that rather than being in competition, GRI and SASB are designed to fulfill different purposes for different audiences with GRI standards designed to provide information to a wide variety of stakeholders and including a very broad array of topics and the SASB standards designed to provide information to investors and focusing on the subset of sustainability issues that are financially material. Please click to access the article on the GreenBiz website.

The press release states that EFRAG particularly welcomes expressions of interest from organisations representing users of financial statements and from National Organisations in Southern, Central and Eastern European countries.

Member organisations decide on EFRAG’s governance and with EFRAG Board rotation set to take place later this year, new members would also partake in nominating candidates for the EFRAG Board and deciding on the composition of the Board.

Please click to access the press release on the EFRAG website.

The conference will cover the following:

• Welcome by IASB Member Stephen Cooper
• IFRS 16: An Overview
• Talking about transition – Optons, decisions and what should you be doing now?
• Panel discussion: Implementation – Hot Topics
• Ratings and Valuations
• Towards the effective date
• Final Q&A and closing comments

More details are available on the conference website.

In this context, the FSB noted the work of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and added:

Access to better quality information on climate-related financial risks is essential to enable market participants to better understand and manage these risks. Without the necessary information, market adjustments to climate change could be incomplete, late and potentially destabilising.

The FSB pointed out that the TCFD issued a consultation document with recommendations on climate-related disclosures in December 2016 that would be followed by June 2017 (and thus in time for the July G20 meeting in Hamburg) by the final report offering "a solution by the market for the market".

Please click to access the full letter on the FSB website.

The report is based on two workshops held last year and contains several general recommendations as well as recommendations focused on revenue recognition accounting policies.

General accounting policies and procedures:

• Accounting policies must adhere to technical accounting guidance. It is critical that these policies be understandable to non-accountants who may not be conversant in the nuances of technical accounting.
• Accounting policies must be reviewed at regular intervals and companies should have a process to identify and monitor changes in activities that have a potential impact on accounting.
• Policies must be tested in the field prior to implementation, and then monitored for compliance post-implementation.

Revenue recognition accounting policies and procedures:

• The revenue recognition policy should be granular, because even slight differences in interpretation can have a major impact on revenue recognition.
• Where possible, contract terms should be standardised and reflect how transactions at a contract level relate to the requirements of accounting standards.
• Deviations from typical contract terms that have implications for revenue recognition should be well documented.
• Clear responsibility and communication lines among legal, business, and finance should be created so that all key players understand and approve of transactions.

The report also includes some recommendations about internal control over financial reporting.

Please click to access the report on the CAQ website.

The award is for organisations that are demonstrating clearly, through communicating to their providers of financial capital, how sustainability, in its broadest sense, is embedded into their overall strategy and decision making process and how this ‘integrated thinking’ is contributing to a sustainable business model which delivers long term value. In this context, integrated thinking is seen as coming before reporting with reporting being the end result from this process and a way to communicate progress to the outside world.

In order to be considered for the award, entrants must submit three years of annual reports and financial statements and at least one specific example of communication to demonstrate:

• How they have communicated to their providers of financial capital that wider factors, such as environmental and social issues, are embedded into their strategy and operations and how they are critical to the long term sustainability of the business, and how this has been done across a range of communications.
• The communication truly reflects the way their organisation is managed and the integrated thinking within it.
• What role the finance function played in the process of embedding and communicating integrated thinking.
• Why they believe that communicating integrated thinking is beneficial to their organisation.

The Finance for Future awards, which are awarded in partnership with Deloitte, are open to all organisations, globally, whether listed, small or public sector.

For further information on the awards and how to enter by 31 May click here.

Please click through for the notes relating to the following issues:

• New issues:
  • IAS 12 — Interest and penalties.
  • IAS 19 — Discount rates.
  • IAS 32 — Centrally cleared derivatives.
  • IAS 33 — Tax consequences of dividends on participating equity instruments.
  • IAS 41 — Fair value of biological assets growing on bearer plants.
  • IFRS 1 — Subsidiary as a first time adopter.
  • IFRS 9 — Modifications and exchanges of financial liabilities.
• Deliberation of comments received:
  • IAS 19 — Remeasurement on a plan amendment, curtailment or settlement — minor plan events.
  • IFRS 11 — Obtaining control or joint control of a joint operation that is a business.
• Agenda decisions to finalise:
  • IAS 2 — Commodity loan transactions.
  • IAS 12 — Deferred taxes in asset acquisitions.
  • IAS 28 — Significant influence: Fund manager acting as an agent.
  • IFRS 10 — Investment entity consolidation.
• Ad­min­is­tra­tive session:
  • Work in progress.

The pre­lim­i­nary and un­of­fi­cial notes taken by De­loitte ob­servers for the entire meeting are also avail­able.

The Trustees of the IFRS Foundation have reappointed Carl Douglas, Mikael Hagström, Bruce Mackenzie, and Bonnie Van Etten to the IFRS Interpretations Committee for a second three-year term beginning on 1 July 2017.

For more information, see the press release on the IASB's website.