Xianzhong Li will represent the Chinese Ministry of Finance on the Council.

A press release announcing his appointment is available on the IASB website.

Each webinar will be offered once in the morning and once in the afternoon to accommodate stakeholders in different time zones. The webinars will last approximately 60 minutes and will consist of an overview of the standard’s objectives and related research opportunities, followed by questions and answers.

Please click for registration on the IASB website:

IFRS 9, Thursday 21 January 2021:

• Morning session (09:00-10:00 GMT)
• Afternoon session (15:00-16:00 GMT)

IFRS 16, Friday 22 January 2021:

• Morning session (09:30-10:30 GMT)
• Afternoon session (15:00-16:00 GMT)

IFRS 15, Monday 8 February 2021:

• Morning session (09:00-10:00 GMT)
• Afternoon session (15:00-16:00 GMT)

The podcast (30 minutes) is hosted by IFRS In­ter­pre­ta­tions Committee Chair and IASB Vice-Chair Sue Lloyd and Technical Staff member Patrina Buchanan and focuses on reverse factoring arrangements, cloud computing arrangements, classification of debt as current or non-current, defined benefit plans, and inflation cash flow hedge accounting.

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

In addition to proposals and comments on an advisory council, the proposed structure, due process matters, and the funding needed, the comment letter also discusses the cooperation with other standard setters and initiatives. Accountancy Europe notes, that it supports a “building block” approach to non-financial information (NFI) reporting standard setting: The base would be global standards for market transparency, achieved by the coordination, cooperation and consolidation of global NFI initiatives and additional “blocks” of EU NFI reporting standards could then be added to that, where necessary.

Under this scenario, Accountancy Europe notes, EFRAG’s role would be to endorse global NFI reporting standards in the EU and to develop the added “block” of EU NFI reporting standards important for the EU public policy objectives. The comment letter points out that international cooperation is the best way forward:

Therefore, we suggest EFRAG to collaborate with the IFRS Foundation, CDP, the Value Reporting Foundation, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), to set the respective roles and task to avoid inefficiencies (e.g., output and funding) and to timely address the urgent issues at hand.

Please click to access the full comment letter on the Accountancy Europe website.

The adopted amendments are:

• Interest Rate Benchmark Reform — Phase 2 (Amendments to IFRS 9, IAS 39, IFRS 7, IFRS 4 and IFRS 16); and
• Extension of the Temporary Exemption from Applying IFRS 9 (Amendments to IFRS 4).

The UKEB website, which was launched on 5 January 2021, offers an adoption status report (similar to the EFRAG status report) that shows which amendments have been adopted and which adoptions are still outstanding. It can be found here.

The 145 Agenda Decisions are comprised of those issued by the IFRS IC from 2011 to June 2020 that are currently available to the public.

Please click to access the agenda decisions on the KASB website.

We reiterate that we support actions in favour of global initiatives because the issues to be addressed are global issues and need global solutions. Businesses have global supply and value chains, face global risks and have global investors. Most importantly, issues such as climate change and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals require international solutions.

With respect to the Consultation document:

• We are supportive of the proposals in relation to EFRAG’s new mission and due process as described in the document.
• We support retaining the current infrastructure and role for the financial reporting.
• We support the idea of an enlarged General Assembly that covers all EFRAG’s activities.
• We support the proposals for an EFRAG (Supervisory) Board, which would look after the governance and administration of the overall organisation, as well as the oversight of all the EFRAG bodies.
• We support the financial reporting and non-financial reporting Boards having the ultimate decision-making powers on financial reporting and non-financial reporting issues respectively.
• For non-financial reporting, to the extent that EFRAG is entrusted with standard-setting activities, the non-financial reporting Board is likely to require enhanced technical competences, as compared to the current EFRAG Board.
• Collecting the views of EU Member States /national public authorities on non-financial reporting will be important.
• With respect to the EU institutions and agencies, we suggest their participation in an observer capacity with speaking rights, at each level of the EFRAG organisation, where this would be relevant.
• With respect to the representation of the private sector and civil society, we are strongly in favour of a public-private partnership for EFRAG.
• We support close involvement and/or cooperation between EFRAG and the identified key international non-financial reporting standard-setting organisations.
• To enable the EFRAG structure to achieve its possible mission for non-financial reporting standard-setting successfully, it will need additional competent operational resources at the EFRAG staff level.
• Finally, considering the proposed governance structure and the need for long-term finance, as well as the fact that the objective would be to possibly develop non-financial reporting standards, our view is that the European Commission and the Member States should provide the majority of the funding.

Please click to download our full comment letter here.

The IPTF's discussion document for the 10 November 2020 meeting is now available and states the following view of the Task Force:

Countries with three-year cumulative inflation rates exceeding 100%:

• Argentina
• Iran
• Lebanon
• South Sudan
• Sudan
• Venezuela
• Zimbabwe

Countries with projected three-year cumulative inflation rates exceeding 100%:

• Suriname

Countries where the three-year cumulative inflation rates had exceeded 100% in recent years:

There are no countries in this category for this period.

Countries with recent three-year cumulative inflation rates exceeding 100% after a spike in inflation in a discrete period:

There are no countries in this category for this period.

Countries with projected three-year cumulative inflation rates between 70% and 100% or with a significant (25% or more) increase in inflation during the current period

• Angola
• Haiti
• Liberia
• Yemen

The IPTF also notes that there may be additional countries with three-year cumulative inflation rates exceeding 100% or that should be monitored which are not included in the analysis as the necessary data is not available. An example cited is Syria.

The full list, including exact numbers, detailed explanations of the calculation of the numbers, and observations of the Task Force is available on the CAQ website.

Overall, our most popular pages remain our accounting standards summaries, and we continued to witness strong demand for our news, publications, resource pages, and project summaries. Our COVID-19 resource page witnessed of course great demand this year.

We wish you a happy, safe and healthy New Year. We look forward to bringing you the latest financial reporting news in 2021.

The Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China has issued CAS 25 (revised) to be part of the IFRS-converged accounting standards for Chinese entities (Chinese Accounting Standards or CAS). The text of the new regulation is converged with IFRS 17 as issued by the IASB except for the mandatory effective date that is staggered over two stages: 1 January 2023 for all Chinese listed insurers and 2026 for all other Chinese insurers. The Chinese text of CAS 25 (revised) is available here.

The Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) has adopted Amendments to IFRS 17 that the IASB issued in June 2020 to address concerns and implementation challenges that were identified after IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts was published in 2017. The SOCPA adoption also includes Extension of the Temporary Exemption from Applying IFRS 9 (Amendments to IFRS 4). Announcements in Arabic regarding the adoption of the IFRS 17 amendments and the IFRS 4 amendments are available on the SOCPA website.

On 24 December 2020, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) issued for comment an exposure draft of amendments to Ind AS 117 Insurance Contracts that is intended to keep the IFRS-converged accounting standards for Indian entities (Indian Accounting Standards or Ind AS) aligned with IFRSs as issued by the IASB. Comments can be submitted by 24 January 2021. Following receipt of any comments, the ICAI will issue the amended Ind AS 117 for the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to consider its inclusion in the legally mandated Ind AS. The press release on the ICAI website offers access to the exposure draft.