CBO chief calls for IFRS compliance

Muscat: Tahir bin Salim Al Amri, Executive President, Central Bank of Oman (CBO), reiterated the need for best practices and vigilant regulatory supervision for maintaining a robust banking system and highlighted on the importance of accounting and financial reporting standards to achieve that. He was speaking at the IFRS conference organised by the audit firm Crowe Mak Ghazali at the Crowne Plaza hotel yesterday.
The workshop was conducted by the firm as its endeavour to impart knowledge on the updates and changes in IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). Crowe Oman who is celebrating its 25th year brings in a pool of global knowledge and expertise into the profession
Earlier welcoming the delegates, Davis Kallukaran, Managing Partner at Crowe said, “In today’s stringent regulatory business environment with new standards and mandates coming to effect at a never-before pace, the need to keep up with regulatory changes and ensure ongoing compliance with them has emerged as a crucial priority.”
Mandated for use in over 130 countries, IFRS is a set of international accounting guidelines on how the business transactions should be reported in financial statements.T he event focused on the new standard IFRS 16 Leases which came into effect on 1 January 2019 and expected to have a wider impact on the business entities.
James Ravi, director - Audit and Assurance at Crowe and the lead faculty for the workshop explained, “Leasing is a key financial solution enabling companies to use property, plant and equipment without the need to incur large initial cash outflows. The current standard generally requires lessees to account for lease transactions, either as off-balance sheet operating or as on-balance sheet finance leases. Under IFRS 16, lessees will have to recognise almost all leases on the balance sheet which will reflect their right to use an asset for a period and the associated liability to pay rentals.”
Karl Jackson, Associate Partner Audit and Assurance, who moderated the workshop highlighted the impact of IFRS 9 on the banking sector and elaborated on the intricacies of the new impairment model.