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    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Accounting in Europe on 02/08/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449480.2016.1210179

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Expected-loss-based accounting for impairment of financial instruments: the FASB and IASB proposals 2009-2016

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Accounting in Europe
Issue number2
Volume13
Number of pages39
Pages (from-to)229-267
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date2/08/16
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The financial and banking crisis of the late 2000s prompted claims that the incurred-loss method for the recognition of credit-losses had caused undesirable delay in the recognition of credit-loss impairment. In the wake of the crisis, the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) worked towards the development of expected-loss-based methods of accounting for credit-loss impairment. Their work included an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to develop a converged FASB/IASB standard on credit-loss impairment. The FASB and IASB eventually developed their own separate expected-loss models to be included, respectively, in a 2016 FASB standard and in the IASB's 2014 final version of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments. The failure to achieve convergence on an issue of such high profile and materiality has generated some controversy, and it is claimed that it will impose significant costs on the preparers and users of the financial statements of banks. This paper examines the various sets of expected-loss-based proposals issued separately or jointly since 2009 by the FASB and the IASB. It describes and compares key features of the different approaches eventually developed by the two standard setters, referring to issues that arose in arriving at practically workable solutions and to issues that may have impeded FASB/IASB convergence. It also provides information indicative of the possible effect of differences between the two approaches.

Bibliographic note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Accounting in Europe on 02/08/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449480.2016.1210179