Under IFRS9, Financial Institutions are required to implement impairment frameworks to determine the expected losses on their credit portfolio taking into account the current (so called “point in time”) and the prospective (so called “forward looking”) economic cycle. The Covid-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, has posed significant challenges for Financial Institutions in their ability to manage credit risk. Despite numerous guidelines given by regulators, estimating IFRS9 expected loss continues to be a considerable challenge. The challenge partly stems from the relationship between macro-economic scenarios and credit losses, the treatment of moratoriums inside the historical series for development and calibration of IFRS9 risk parameters, and the management of support measures defined at National and European levels (e.g. Next Generation EU) for the forward looking estimations.
