Regulatory treatment of accounting provisions

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today released details of the interim regulatory treatment of accounting provisions and standards for transitional arrangements. These measures are in response to the forthcoming international accounting standards on provisioning, which incorporate forward-looking assessments in the estimation of credit losses.

International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 9 will take effect on 1 January 2018 (earlier application is permitted). The current expected credit losses (CECL) model will take effect on 1 January 2020 for certain banks that are public companies and in 2021 for all other banks, with early application permitted for all banks in 2019.

The Committee supports the use of expected credit loss (ECL) accounting approaches and encourages their application in a manner that will achieve earlier recognition of credit losses than incurred loss models while also providing incentives for banks to follow sound credit risk management practices. Nevertheless, the implementation of ECL accounting is likely to have implications for regulatory capital, as the new accounting provisioning models introduce fundamental changes to banks' provisioning practices.

Given the limited time until the effective date of IFRS 9, the Committee will retain the current regulatory treatment of provisions under the Basel framework for an interim period. This will allow the Committee to consider more thoroughly the longer-term regulatory treatment of provisions. Jurisdictions may adopt transitional arrangements to smooth any potential significant negative impact on regulatory capital arising from the introduction of ECL accounting.

The Basel Committee thanks all those who contributed time and effort to express their views during the consultation process.