The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) conducted a focused roundtable event, in collaboration with the International Accounting Standards Boad (IASB) and International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), on 9 May 2024, at Wyndham Grand Manama hotel, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. The event was attended, both physically and online, by around 100 experts and practitioners from across the Islamic finance industry and its broader stakeholders, particularly the regional regulators.

The roundtable agenda featured a joint update on AAOIFI, IASB and ISSB standard setters. Mr. Omar Mustafa Ansari, AAOIFI’s Secretary General, walked through AAOIFI’s current projects and priorities in terms of new standards, exposure drafts and emerging issues in the in relation to its standards (including financial accounting standards, governance standards, Shari’ah standards, auditing standards, and codes of ethics).

Mr. Bruce Mackenzie, IASB member, provided an update on the hot topics for the board and IFRS interpretations committee, focusing on key requirements in forthcoming IFRS accounting standard primary financial statements. Furthermore, he presented an overview of the exposure draft on business combinations and certain newly published agenda decisions and narrow-scope standard-setting projects undertaken by the IASB.

As part of the IASB’s initiative to address the pressing issues of sustainability in connection with financial reporting requirements, Mr. Jonathan Bravo, Ms. Anna Hemmant and Mr. Richard Barker delivered presentations highlighting ISSB’s efforts to support its newly issued IFRS S1 and IFRS S2.

Mr. Omar Mustafa Ansari, Secretary General of AAOIFI, stated: “We are pleased to have hosted and actively participated in this high-level joint event with other prominent global standard setters. At AAOIFI, alignment and cooperation with fellow standard-setters is a key element in the due process undertaken by respective technical boards”.

This roundtable event was held adjacent to the Islamic Finance Consultative Group (IFCG) meeting also hosted by AAOIFI in the Kingdom of Bahrain.