The International Financial Reporting Standards Board (IASB) in her usual custom of monthly meetings held her meeting for March 2025 on 18th and 19th March 2025.

This article discusses the main agenda items discussed during the meeting as well as the major issues and decisions taken during the IASB March 2025 meeting.

IASB March 2025 Meeting Agenda

1. IASB work plan update (Agenda Paper 8)

2. Post-implementation Review of IFRS 16 Leases (Agenda Paper 7)

3. Rate-regulated Activities (Agenda Paper 9)

4. Intangible Assets (Agenda Paper 17)

5. Business Combinations—Disclosures, Goodwill and Impairment (Agenda Paper 18)

6. Statement of Cash Flows and Related Matters (Agenda Paper 20)

7. Updating IFRS 19 Subsidiaries without Public Accountability: Disclosures (Agenda Paper 32)

8. Fourth Agenda Consultation (Agenda Paper 24)

9. Post-implementation Review of IFRS 16 Leases (Agenda Paper 7)

 

Major Decisions/Discussions Held By IASB During The March 2025 Meeting

 

1.The IASB discussed feedback and other information gathered in the first phase of the Post-implementation Review (PIR) of IFRS 16 Leases;

Also discussed a review of academic literature relevant to the PIR; and decided what questions should be included in a public consultation in the form of a request for information (RFI).

The IASB tentatively decided to include questions in the RFI to assess whether:

 

IFRS 16 is meeting its objective and whether its core principles are clear; and

the benefits to users of the information reported in accordance with IFRS 16 and the costs—particularly ongoing costs—of applying the requirements, and auditing and enforcing their application, are not significantly different from what the IASB expected.

All 14 IASB members agreed with these decisions.

 

The IASB tentatively decided not to include a question in the RFI to assess whether the IASB could make any improvements to the requirements in IFRS 16 that would help users to compare entities that apply IFRS 16 with those that apply FASB ASC Topic 842, Leases.

 

Ten of 14 IASB members agreed with this decision.

 

Feedback analysis—Identifying a lease, lease term and the lessee accounting model (Agenda Paper 7C)

The IASB tentatively decided to include questions in the RFI to assess whether:

 

the lease-term requirements provide a clear and sufficient basis for entities to determine a lease term and whether entities are able to apply the requirements consistently;

the benefits to users of the information reported in accordance with the lease-term requirements are not significantly lower than the IASB expected;

the requirements for variable lease payments provide a clear and sufficient basis for lessees to determine which variable lease payments are included in the measurement of the lease liability;

the requirements for discount rates provide a clear and sufficient basis for lessees to determine a discount rate (usually an incremental borrowing rate), and whether entities are able to apply the requirements consistently;

the effects of applying the discount-rate requirements are not significantly different from what the IASB expected;

the ongoing costs of remeasuring lease liabilities (to reflect reassessments of lease liability or lease modifications) are not significantly higher than the IASB expected; and

the benefits to users of the information about lease-related cash flows that lessees present in the statement of cash flows (or disclose in the notes to financial statements) are not significantly lower than the IASB expected.

The IASB tentatively decided not to include questions in the RFI about:

 

the requirements for identifying a lease;

the recognition requirements for lessees; and

the effects of the lack of specific requirements for lessees to account for non-cash consideration.

Twelve of 14 IASB members agreed with these decisions.

 

2. The IASB discussed whether to develop reduced disclosure requirements for the prospective IFRS Accounting Standard Regulatory Assets and Regulatory Liabilities (prospective RARL Accounting Standard).

 

The IASB tentatively decided to confirm its proposal in the Exposure Draft Amendments to IFRS 19 Subsidiaries without Public Accountability: Disclosures to require an entity applying IFRS 19 and the prospective RARL Accounting Standard to apply all the disclosure requirements in the prospective RARL Accounting Standard.

 

Eleven of 14 IASB members agreed with the decision.

 

 

3. Intangible Assets

The IASB  discuss:ed an analysis of the feedback and other evidence gathered in the initial stage of the project; and

possible project objectives and broad groups of topics that the IASB could explore in the project.

The IASB was not asked to make any decisions.

The IASB will decide on the project direction in future.

 

4. Information about commonly used cash flow measures; and the statement of cash flows for financial institutions.

The IASB also discussed its main observations from the findings, which were that: stakeholders’ issues with classification of cash flows, aggregation and disaggregation of cash flow information, and information about commonly used cash flow measures might share similar solutions. The IASB might resolve these issues by building on the requirements of other IFRS Accounting Standards, particularly those in IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements.

information about non-cash transactions is a priority for users. The IASB might therefore consider a variety of approaches to improving the presentation or disclosure of such information, including building on disclosure requirements in IFRS Accounting Standards.

changes to the requirement for presenting cash flows from operating activities using the direct or the indirect method are not a priority for most stakeholders.

the statement of cash flows of financial institutions provides limited useful information to stakeholders. Consequently, the IASB will consider the costs and benefits to financial institutions when deciding on the applicability of some of the requirements for the statement of cash flows of financial institutions.

The IASB did not make any decisions.

In future, the IASB will discuss a project plan based on its discussion of the initial research findings and further feedback from consultative groups.

 

 

For more details on this subject simply visit the IASB website.