Oman’s CMA Announces Implementation of IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts

The Capital Market Authority (CMA) would like to inform investors and the public that starting from the current year 2023, the conventional re/insurance companies in the Sultanate of Oman have commenced the adoption of the IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts which was issued by the International Accounting Standards Board as a replace- ment of IFRS 4.

The new standard identifies specific accounting approaches rather than the previous standard. This could impact the insurance company’s financial statements to various degrees based on the insurance contract’s nature. It is worth noting that the IFRS 17 will eventually elevates the disclosures quality and thus enhances transparency on the insurance contract related risks. Additionally, it enables comparison of the financial statements among in- surance companies for either locally and globally, which provides an in-depth detail to the public, investors and stakeholders.

Moreover, the CMA urges all insurance companies to engage regularly with investors and stakeholders to empha- size changes that might occur to the company’s business and financial statements to support investors in the process of financial analysis which is based on a high quality data to enable effective decisions. The impact of the initial implementation of the mentioned standard will be replaced in the equity section and financial performance of the third quarter of this year.

The CMA is keen to provide the required support to all listed companies, investors and consumers, and given the challenges encountered by the insurance sector, particularly companies, audit firms and actuaries in the imple- mentation of the new standard and in addition to the operational and regulatory difficulties faced by companies that requires further time to implement the new standard, the CMA decided to extend the disclosure period of listed re/insurance companies’ financial statements for the third quarter of 2023 to 60 days from the end of the quarter.