Taking a step outside of the U.S., European banks and other non-U.S. banks will have to record losses on bad loans more quickly and set aside more reserves for loan losses under an overhaul of finance-accounting rules that global rule makers made final on Thursday, an article in The Wall Street Journal said.
Under the new standard, non-U.S. banks will have to book loan losses based on their expectation that future losses will occur, beginning in 2018. That is expected to speed up the booking of losses and require greater loan-loss reserves.
The move by the London-based International Accounting Standards Board, which has been in the works for years, could create a conundrum for the banking industry: Because U.S. and global rule makers haven't been able to agree on the same accounting approach for writing off bad loans, it could become more difficult to compare U.S. banks and those outside the U.S.
