Banking

Despite (or perhaps because of) a turbulent political, economic, and regulatory climate, analyst predictions continue to point to 2017 as an active year for bank M&A transactions. On one side of the coin, it’s because large banks are striving to ‘bulk up’ in the face of regulations. On the other, it’s because small community banks are buckling to shareholder pressures and seeking to exit.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) today (June 16, 2016) issued its long-awaited Accounting Standards Update (ASU) regarding its new loan loss accounting framework. The Current Expected Credit Loss model (CECL) was first proposed in 2012. With its adoption, 40 years of standards related to how banks manage their business change, posing significant compliance and operational challenges for banks.

On April 27, 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) met to discuss the costs and benefits of its planned standard for writing down bad loans and securities. During that session, the board voted to proceed with a new accounting standard that provides timelier financial reporting of expected credit losses on loans (CECL) and other financial instruments held by financial institutions and other organizations. 

Last week, a group of community bankers from the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and representatives from the American Bankers Association (ABA) met with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to discuss concerns about the upcoming impairment standard on credit losses. The meeting came partly as a result of two years of requests from the ABA to consider the implications of accounting changes on community banks.