IFRS 9 is a major upgrade to the accounting rules for financial instruments coming into force in 2018.  It has four main areas described in more detail here

• There are new rules covering the classification and recognition of revenue/losses from financial instruments.
• Impairment is to be measured on an Expected Credit Loss rather than the previous incurred loss method.
• Own Credit Adjustments are to shown only through Other Comprehensive Income.
• Hedge Accounting is to allow broader types of hedges and instruments to be hedges better following commercial practice.

Most of the excitement is on the second bullet above as this is requiring a major re-engineering of banks’ financial assessment of their expected credit risk losses.  Banks that already use their internal models to estimate expected losses for their regulatory  capital are better placed than those who have just used Standard Rules calculations.