RBI tells banks to report H1 financial statements by November end

The move will help the regulator identify difficulties faced by banks in making the transition to IFRS from April 2018

The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to submit financial statements for the first half (H1) of the fiscal year by November 30 with regard to the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS).

It will help the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ascertain the difficulties faced by the banks as part of its transition to International Financial Reporting Standards from April 2018, a top RBI official said at an industry lobby's event here on October 7.

"The RBI is expecting a rough, first-cut reporting from banks with regard to pro forma Ind-AS financial statements for the half year by November 30," Sudarshan Sen, Executive Director of RBI, said at a seminar at New Delhi.

He added further that despite the statements bringing up issues of accuracy, they would help the RBI to work on the identified difficulties and problems.

The RBI director said capacity building, both in terms of human and IT resources, is the need of the hour for banks to follow Ind-AS convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards from April 2018.

"But this is again a huge challenge, especially in public sector banks. There are processes involved in upgrading software and hardware. It takes time. There are approvals required and there are budgets to be made. It is a big challenge as to how they would be able to meet the timelines given by us," Sen said.

"Banks will have to put in very robust systems in place and make efforts and expenses to meet the requirements in this regard," he added.

He said that the RBI will have to review various regulations and bring them in tune with the Ind AS.

Sen said that formats of balance sheets and profit-and-loss account under the Banking Regulation Act will change the Ind AS landscape.

"All this is being looked into. All reporting formats will undergo a great change," he said.