Written By: MEBiery
The top accountant for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and other Fed staff will host an informational session Oct. 3 to discuss the Financial Accounting Standard Board’s updated credit-loss standard, also known as the current expected credit loss (CECL) model.
The upcoming FedPerspectives webinar is from 3 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET and will feature an overview of responses to CECL Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) issued by banking supervisors so far, including the most recent round of interagency FAQs released as SR 17-8 on Sept. 6.
Fed Chief Accountant Joanne Wakim and her team recently attended the AICPA National Conference on Banks & Savings Institutions, so they will also share their observations on what they heard at the conference and take questions from participants, said Erik Soell, program director for bank education at the St. Louis Fed, in an email to Abrigo.
FedPerspectives features information and perspectives on important banking supervision and regulatory topics from Federal Reserve experts, and several previous sessions have focused on the CECL implementation. Register for the Oct. 3 FedPerspectives CECL session here. Previous sessions on CECL can be accessed here.
The FASB’s (ASU) No. 2016-13, Topic 326, Financial Instruments – Credit Losses, will take effect as early as 2020 for SEC-registered financial institutions, and it is considered the biggest change in the history of bank accounting, so institutions are scrambling to understand and implement it.
Regulators have said examiners may begin asking financial institutions about the status of their CECL implementation efforts, but they have also said they will “tailor their expectations based on the size and complexity of the institution” and the applicable effective date. Regulatory agencies have indicated examiners will be looking for a “good faith effort to achieve a sound and reasonable implementation of the new accounting standard.”
Abrigo also has resources for banks and credit unions looking to learn more about implementing CECL. Resources include free webinars on data quality issues and how financial institutions can address them, executive seminars for community banking and credit union executives to learn more about CECL preparations, and whitepapers available to download on demand.