SAS guides Egyptian financial institutions to ensure IFRS-9 compliance

Hosts event in Cairo to equip financial organizations with the expertise and
capabilities to meet the 2019 deadline

SAS, the leader in business analytics, hosted the IFRS9 Egypt Event 2018 at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cairo. At this one-day event, banks and financial institutions in Egypt received the technology-aided risk-mitigation guidelines to prepare and address IFRS-9 challenges, and ensure compliance within the global 2019 deadline.

Marcel Yammine, General Manager, Gulf and Emerging Markets (GEM) at SAS, said, “Compliance to IFRS-9, while required, will not be easy. The Egyptian financial services sector faces a challenging journey ahead in order to reach the national and global goals of this transformation. At the same time, it also presents a golden opportunity to refresh internal measurement practices for financial assets and liabilities. At SAS, we have built the right banking industry experience and the IFRS 9 domain expertise, and we remain committed to supporting the financial services sector on their path toward optimal IFRS 9 compliance.”

Banks and financial institutions planning for IFRS-9 compliance will need to invest in new and complementary information technology to meet new standards in performance, data management, analytics, and integration between Risk and Finance. They will also need to refine their calculation methodologies over time, and need solutions that can facilitate this progression. During the event, SAS executives highlighted how a centralized, flexible, high-performance analytics environment can help organizations implement strong governance, meet data management and reporting requirements, and provide advanced risk management and financial reporting capabilities.

The event opened with a keynote from Marcel Yammine, highlighting the current status of the impending IFRS-9, and the challenges the industry may face. This was followed by breakout sessions and panel discussions designed to help the financial sector in Egypt gain a greater understanding of IFRS 9, and the best-practices to overcome key challenges of implementation.

The International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) is a set of guidelines circulated by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) that specifies how an entity should classify and measure financial assets, financial liabilities, and some contracts to buy or sell non-financial items. Its standards establish a wide range of practices that can shape how financial institutions operate.