BC282 The Board decided that the concerns raised by some interested parties about the different effective dates of IFRS 9 and the forthcoming insurance contracts Standard could be equally applicable to some first-time adopters. This might be the case, for example, when a first-time adopter previously applied accounting policies for financial instruments under a national GAAP that was not significantly different from IFRSs. Consequently, the Board decided to permit first-time adopters to apply the overlay approach, described in paragraph 35B of IFRS 4, or the temporary exemption from IFRS 9, described in paragraph 20A of IFRS 4, consistently with existing IFRS preparers if, and only if, those first-time adopters meet the same criteria. For example, a first-time adopter would assess whether its activities are predominately connected with insurance in the same way, and on the same date, as an existing IFRS preparer.