December meeting results

The FASB & IASB met again to discuss leases on Dec. 13 & 14. Significant decisions reached include:

Cancellable leases
If both the lessee and the lessor have the right to cancel the lease (without termination penalties) such that the minimum term, including any non-cancellable period and any notice period, is 12 months or less, it meets the definition of a short-term lease. The key here is that either side can cancel; if one side can require renewal, then normal lease accounting applies.

Investment properties
Rental income from property accounted for (under IFRS 40) as investment property will not be capitalized, as such property is out of scope of the new leasing standard. However, the boards still chose how to recognize rental income: straight line, or another systematic basis if more representative of use of the asset.

Disclosures for these lessor leases are to include:

• Maturity analysis of future rents (at least 5 years by year, then the rest combined). This is not to be combined with the maturity analysis for capitalized leases.
• Separate entries for minimum contractual rents and variable lease payments
• Cost, carrying amount, and accumulated depreciation on leases
• Narrative information about lease arrangement

Future meetings
The staff listed the following items to be redeliberated:

• the definition of investment property (which is scoped out of this standard)
• the "lessee accounting model"--as mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article that I commented on previously, the boards are going to discuss further a way to recognize level expense over the life of a lease, even though they rejected this earlier
• additional disclosure items
  

My Banker, My Friend

When I first read an article warning that banks are changing standard mortgage wording to allow them to apply mortgage payments to other forms of debt, I was skeptical.  After all, a mortgage payment is a mortgage payment and a credit card payment is a credit card payment.  There is no ambiguity.

Then I received a letter from my credit card provider (see below) that says:

"In any of the above categories (a) to (d), those amounts with the lowest rate(s) of interest will be paid first before those amounts with the higher rate(s) of interest."

Now that's just mean.  Basic financial advice is that you pay down the debt with the highest rate of interest first.  It only makes sense.  And in troubled financial times, we all have to pay attention to basic financial advice.  Is it really in the bank's best long term interest to treat customers this way?  Here's what MNBA says:  http://www.mbna.ca/about_company_conductcommitment.html  I'll let you be the judge of whether this practice is "top quality customer service."

Codes of Conduct and Public Commitment

MBNA, a division of The Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canada's largest MasterCard issuer, is committed to providing top quality customer service. What sets us apart is our commitment to finding the right customers and keeping them.

Voluntary Codes of Conduct and Public Commitments are non-legislated commitments, voluntarily made by companies, that ensure a high level of service while helping them remain competitive. At MBNA we adhere to the following voluntary codes and public commitment designed to protect our customers.

Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada
Promotes fair business practices and ensures that merchants and consumers understand the costs and benefits associated with credit and debit cards.

Call to Action

I'm not going to rant about unfairness or counsel you to complain to the authorities, the ombudsman or the courts.  Yes, class action lawsuits and government intervention have happened over this kind of issue, but it's a long road.  My simple advice is to keep all of your eggs in different baskets.  The old advice was to have a relationship with your banker.  Keep all your services under one roof so they could get to know you and offer you the best deal.  Those days are gone.  Now you can have your mortgage with one company, your credit cards with two other companies and your retirement savings with yet another firm.  Divide and survive!

November meeting results

Sorry, I'm behind again. This is from a month ago; I'll post the results of December's meeting as quickly as possible. This is from the FASB & IASB joint board meetings of Nov. 15 & 16, 2011:

Leases in business combinations
An acquired lessee lease is set up as if it is a new lease at the acquisition date, except that the asset is to be adjusted for any "off-market" terms in the lease; that is, if the rent due is substantially above or below market rents, the difference between market (present valued) and contract is folded into the asset.

This is a significant change from current accounting, which calls for a fair value calculation for both the asset and the obligation at the date of acquisition, with the result that the two are normally different at the acquisition date. Now the normal case will be equal asset and liability at acquisition, unless the rent is considered off-market.

An acquired lessor lease, using the receivable & residual approach, is set up as if it is a new lease at the acquisition date for purposes of calculating the receivable. The residual is the difference between the receivable and the fair value of the asset.

An acquired lessor lease that is treated as investment property or a short-term lease (originally or according to the remaining life at acquisition) is handled according to current rules under IFRS 3 and FASB Topic 805 for acquired operating leases. (However, I don't actually see anything explicitly talking about operating leases in Topic 805 or its original source, FAS 141, so I'm not sure what that means.)

Transition
If a lessee has a previously recognized intangible asset or liability to reflect (un)favorable terms in an operating lease, that should be folded into the right-to-use asset.

Currently, the sale of operating lease receivables by a lessor cannot be treated as a sale; instead, it is accounted for as a secured borrowing (because the receivable is not recognized on the balance sheet to begin with). The boards discussed whether to permit sale treatment at transition. Requiring it was seen as onerous; permitting it as an option would reduce comparability. The boards decided to permit it on a prospective basis only.

First-time adopters of IFRS generally would apply the same transitional rules as other companies, except that they are to use fair value determinations for a right-to-use asset.

Sound, Practical Financial Advice From a Bank??

A round of applause to the bank president who wants the Federal Government to reduce the maximum mortgage limit from 30 years back to 25. (I guess he doesn't realize that he could order his own people to do just that.)

Without getting into a bunch of financial mumbo jumbo, I look at it this way: you get the big mortgage when you need the space for a growing family. With the cost of university education being as high as it is, you need the mortgage paid off by the time the kids go there. A 30 year mortgage leaves you caught in a financial squeeze.

Unfortunately, bank employees don't talk in those terms when you sit down to negotiate your finances. They tell you that you can afford a bigger house with a 30 year mortgage. While not technically a lie, it is hardly a responsible practice either.

So, Mr. Clark, put your bank where your mouth is and give your young customers solid, practical financial advice. You don't need Federal Government approval for that.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/mortgage-rules-should-be-stricter-td-chief-says/article2271588/