BCIN.1 This Basis for Conclusions summarises the considerations of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) when developing IFRS 9 Financial Instruments. Individual IASB members gave greater weight to some factors than to others.

BCIN.2 The IASB has long acknowledged the need to improve the requirements for financial reporting of financial instruments to enhance the relevance and understandability of information about financial instruments for users of financial statements. That need became more urgent in the light of the global financial crisis that started in 2007 (‘the global financial crisis’), so the IASB decided to replace IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement in its entirety as expeditiously as possible. To do this the IASB divided the project into several phases. In adopting this approach, the IASB acknowledged the difficulties that might be created by differences in timing between this project and others, in particular the project on insurance contracts.

Classification and measurement

BCIN.3 IFRS 9 is a new Standard that deals with the accounting for financial instruments. When developing IFRS 9, the IASB considered the responses to its 2009 Exposure Draft Financial Instruments: Classification and Measurement (the ‘2009 Classification and Measurement Exposure Draft’).