Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business is hosting a Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) Mock Earnings Call at next week’s 2nd Edition CECL 2018 Congress, organized by The Center for Financial Professionals. The conference, to be held at the New York Marriott Downtown on March 21^st and 22^nd, is sponsored by Wolters Kluwer and will be attended by leading banks who will share their experience of CECL modelling, providing an update on progress made towards CECL implementation.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) CECL accounting standard comes into effect in 2020 for Securities Exchange Commission registrants and 2021 for other banks. The standard requires an estimate of expected credit losses over the life of the portfolio to be effectively recorded upon origination. Banks are already updating their financial IT infrastructure to cope with the changes.

The Mock Earnings Call will be led by Will Newcomer, Vice President of Product & Strategy for Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business, and will allow delegates to explore insights about questions firms may face when the new CECL standard takes effect. Other participants on the panel will include senior representatives from the likes of Citizens Bank, Whalen Global Advisors LLC, Washington Trust Bank, SRL Advisory Services and The Bank Treasury Newsletter.

The issuance of CECL concludes a journey that began in the wake of the global economic crisis. During that time, the delayed recognition of credit losses associated with loans was seen as a weakness in the application of existing accounting standards, a factor that was determined to have contributed significantly to the financial crisis. As a result, the FASB began exploring alternatives that led to the use of a more forward-looking assessment. 

“CECL will be a game changer. Financial institutions will have to determine their allowance for credit losses in a different way, affecting not only accountants, but also loan officers, internal auditors, chief credit officers and, of course, IT personnel,” Newcomer says. ““CECL continues to shake up the industry and divide opinion on interpretation and implementation variations and strategies. This event will provide both an update on progress made towards final CECL implementation and review of the potential impacts thereafter.”

Newcomer has more than 35 years of experience in risk and finance with major and regional banks as well as leading technology firms, making him uniquely qualified to lead clients to the forefront of integrated finance, risk and compliance solutions. In addition, Newcomer uses extensive experience in enterprise-wide management information systems to help financial institutions in the areas of risk adjusted performance management, budgeting and planning, asset and liability management, incentive compensation, financial reporting and stress testing.

Leading financial services firms from across the world have implemented the company’s OneSumX solution for Regulatory Reporting, Risk and Finance (including CECL and IFRS 9 solutions). Major financial services providers that have recently announced their use of Wolters Kluwer include ABN AMRO, Bahrain Middle East Bank, China Everbright Bank, China Merchants Bank, LGT, Nordea, BBVA and CIBC.

Wolters Kluwer has received a number of recent awards, providing independent verification of its leading market position in integrated regulatory reporting. Chartis Research, for example, recently named Wolters Kluwer a Category Leader for IFRS 9 solutions, for the second year running, as well as a Category Leader in its Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) Report. Wolters Kluwer has won a number of other accolades for its dominant position in regulatory reporting from the likes of Wealth & Finance International, FinTech Finance, Data Management Review and Corporate Vision magazine.