IASB votes on IFRS 17 effective date

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17 Mar 2020

At its meeting held today, the IASB discussed and voted on the remaining issues resulting from the feedback received on the exposure draft ED/2019/4 'Amendments to IFRS 17' which were the effective date of IFRS 17 and the expiry date of the IFRS 9 temporary exemption in IFRS 4.

On the effective date, which originally was set at 1 January 2021 and which ED/2019/4 proposed to move to 1 January 2022, the Board now decided to:

  • a) defer the effective date of IFRS 17 (incorporating the amendments) to annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2023; and
  • b) extend the fixed expiry date of the temporary exemption from applying IFRS 9 in IFRS 4 to annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2023.

Although, several Board members expressed doubt or concerns, the final vote on a) was 12 in favour, 1 against, 1 absent (the one absent Board member had lost connection but later stated that he would also have voted in favour). On question b) the final vote was 12 in favour, 2 against.

The Board then proceeded to discuss questions around the balloting process. All Board members agreed that there is no need to re-expose the amendments to IFRS 17, no Board member intends to dissent from the issuance of the final amendments, and all Board members gave permission to start the balloting process. 

The staff will therefore begin to draft the amendments to IFRS 17 and bring any sweep issues identified during the balloting of the amendments for discussion at a future meeting. The staff expect that the amendments will be issued in the second quarter of 2020, in line with the Board’s plan as stated in the exposure draft.

The IASB has published a press release announcing the deferral.

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