Two major IFRS standards issued in 2014 became effective for reporting periods starting on or after 1 January 2018.

IFRS 9 Financial Instruments

IFRS 9 replaces IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. It consists of three different parts: 

• classification and measurement
• Impairment
• hedge accounting.

The most significant change resulting from IFRS 9 is how banks account for loan losses, though the standard is also relevant for other companies. 

(To read more from IFRS and access the IFRS9 standard click here. Also materials prepared to support implementation of IFRS 9 can be found here.)

Amongst the huge number of comments on IFRS 9, one from Deloittes web-site sums up the general opinion, “The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)’s IFRS 9 standards will require banks to recognise impairment sooner and estimate lifetime expected losses against a wider spectrum of assets. The implementation of these standards in January 2018 are widely expected to increase the stock of credit impairment provisions and affect profits.” 

IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers

IFRS 15 which replaces two Standards - IAS 18 Revenue and IAS 11 Construction Contracts - also went live at the start of 2018. It specifies:

• when and how much revenue a company should recognise
• the information about revenue that the company should disclose in its financial statements. 

PwC report that, “All IFRS reporters will be impacted by IFRS 15 when it becomes effective in 2018. Some industries will experience greater changes than others. The impact to your business, systems, data needs and financial reporting will be far reaching.” PwC have developed a five step model for dealing with IFRS 15, see.

(To read more about from IFRS and access the Standard click here. Materials prepared to support implementation of IFRS 15 can be found here.)