OREANDA-NEWS. On January 30, 2009 the conference “Key IFRS Reporting Issues in a Challenging Market Environment” was held at the hotel Olympic Penta Renaissance in Moscow to mark the closure of a 4–mln euro project “Transition to IFRS in the Banking Sector” funded by the European Union, reported the press-centre of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The objectives of the project that commenced in November 2006 have been to assist the Russian Banking sector and the Bank of Russia in application of international standards principles in bookkeeping and accounting, in preparation of financial reporting in accordance with IFRS. The project has also contributed in enhancing professional skills of bankers in order to improve the business and investment climate in Russia in the perspective of a Common Economic Space (CES) creation between the Russian Federation and the European Union.

A consortium led by PricewaterhouseCoopers, supported by FBK and the European Savings Bank Group (ESBG) has implemented the project. The main beneficiary of the project is the Bank of Russia, represented by its Accounting and Reporting Department.

The conference summed up the results of the successful cooperation in the framework of the project. It also touched upon the role of IFRS reporting in the current unstable situation in credit and capital markets, and in the global credit crunch which have affected the Russian banking system.

Keynote speakers at the conference included Marc Franco, Head of EC Delegation to Russia; Lyudmila Gudenko, Chief Accountant, the Bank of Russia, Jeremy Foster, Partner, Banking & Capital Markets, PricewaterhouseCoopers London; Evgenii Gavrilenkov, Managing Director and Chief Economist, Troika Dialog; Vadim Sorokin, Chief Financial Officer, MDM Bank.
Additional information

The work of the Project in supporting the transition to IFRS has concentrated on several aspects:
Analysis of legislation and development of Bank of Russia normative documents in relation to the application of the international standards principles for bookkeeping and accounting;

Development of functional requirements for information systems related to bookkeeping and accounting based on the international standards principles;

Training of bank accounting specialists in relation to IFRS, which included training of app. 3000 specialists from the whole of the Russian Federation, 3 training programmes for the Bank of Russia specialists, 2 programmes for accounting specialists of credit organizations, and 1 programme for independent banking auditors;

Awareness of best practices of IFRS application in EU countries’ banks was raised by 5 study tours to EU countries with visits to central banks, regulators, and commercial banks;

Application of IFRS in practice has become possible thanks to 6 conferences organized in the framework of the project, and material published on the project website, including workbooks on IFRS;

Training materials, functional requirements to information systems and other deliverables created by the Project are available for downloading from the project website. Some material will be directly distributed on discs to app. 1000 credit organizations in the Russian Federation.