IFRS Publishes Summary of September 2019 Meeting of Advisory Council

Key takeaways from the meeting include the following:

• Effect of technology on the investment process and the potential consequences for IFRS Foundation. Members of the Advisory Council noted that the Board needed to be careful about making changes to standards and to consider the impact of the changes on the technological analysis of data. The Foundation needs to consider its core competencies, potentially around recognition and measurement and the process of standard-setting. The Foundation should consider lending a hand or otherwise get involved in other relevant standard-setting arenas.
• Consistent adoption and application of IFRS standards. The Advisory Council members considered to what extent should the IFRS Foundation refresh its approach to monitoring consistent adoption and application of standards. For monitoring activities, the Foundation should consider working in partnership with others, including data aggregators about producing the information. To ensure consistent application, the Foundation should consider, in advance of issuing standards, matters in relation to translation and cultural application of language to ensure that standards are written to encourage consistent application.
• Risks confronting the IFRS Foundation. In general, members were in agreement with the risks that had been identified by the Foundation. However, there was a suggestion that risks around financing should be considered for inclusion. No significant new actions were identified for the Foundation to consider to minimize the impact of the risks, although a number of identified actions could be considered further by the Foundation.
• Proposed approach to the 2020 Agenda consultation. Members were generally supportive of the proposals of the management. The majority of members supported the proposal to include a shortlist of potential projects as well as a suggestion to include some form of preliminary Board thoughts on the topics, rather than the Board’s full preliminary views of which potential projects from the shortlist it proposes to add to its work plan. In addition, a majority of members supported the proposal to reassess the priority pipeline projects from its previous work plan that had not yet been commenced. Members also advised the Foundation to consider how best to determine and communicate the criteria for determining the appropriate work plan. 

Keywords: International, Banking, Insurance, Securities, Risk Management, IFRS Standards, Advisory Council, IFRS, IASB