More than 30 senior accounting and finance professionals from Bahrain's insurance sector took part in a briefing on International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Insurance Contracts Project (IFRS 4 Phase II).

Hosted by Bahrain Insurance Association (BIA) in conjunction with KPMG Fakhro, the seminar, at the InterContinental Regency Bahrain, updated the insurers in Bahrain on IFRS 4 Phase II project and highlighted its relevance and implications in the GCC region.

The seminar was opened by BIA's Mohammed Altooblani and included a briefing from KPMG Bahrain insurance audit and advisory services senior manager Adeel Mushtaq.

"The accounting and solvency regulatory framework for insurers is going through major overhaul in the coming years with new accounting standards for insurance accounting, financial instruments and global move towards risk-based capital solvency requirements," said Altooblani.

"BIA is pleased to join hands with KPMG to update its members on upcoming changes in accounting standards," he added.

"Regional insurers should be thinking about the upcoming financial and regulatory changes and should act on them now and with the current IFRS Phase II in mind, build some flexibility for global move towards risk-based capital solvency and risk management requirements," said Mushtaq.

"IFRS 4 Phase II and risk-based capital solvency requirements similar to Solvency II in Europe is the biggest set of accounting and regulatory changes sweeping across industry in long time.

"The nature of change is not only complex but also broad," he said.

"IFRS 4 Phase II proposes a completely new approach to profit and loss, performance measurement and monitoring put together with implication on underlying system changes and processes insurers have to go through to produce required information.

"As IFRS 4 Phase II proposals and Solvency II are both based on same central model for the liabilities measurement using current estimates of fulfilling cash flows, hence it makes sense for insurers to be forward thinking while implementing IFRS 4 Phase II proposal and identify synergies in implementation together with other related system and process updates," he added. – TradeArabia News Service