Clearly confused

Adrian Ladbury casts an eye over the last seven days in the markets

THE debate over the actual and potential impact of the new raft of International Accounting Standards (IAS) on insurers and reinsurers seems to get more confusing by the week. Munich Re’s interesting attempt last week to gain brownie points by announcing it would be one of Europe’s first major insurers to adopt the controversial IAS 32 and 39 standards shows just how confusing the whole area can be. The goals of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are simple and laudable, like all good goals. The world’s economic superpowers have agreed listed firms should measure and report their financials in a more comparable and transparent way. The core of this is the effort to make listed firms report figures according to IAS rules rather than local GAAP (generally-accepted accounting principles) or other systems.