Banks in the UAE have been given until June 16 to assess the impact of new accounting standards, which are likely to raise the impairments required against bad loans. The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 rule, is designed to improve the resilience of the banking system to shocks. Under current standards, banks build provisions for loans when borrowers fail to repay. The new rules mean banks will have to switch to an expected loss model, which implies that they would have to start building provisions much earlier. Although the rules require banks to begin disclosing earnings taking into account the new rules from the start of 2018, they will have to start adopting the requirements internally from next year to ensure they can make annual comparisons. (Reuters)