Following feedback from the 2015 Agenda Consultation and a review of the research findings, the Board:
- added to its research pipeline a new, narrow-scope feasibility study on pension benefits that depend on asset returns; and
- decided not to investigate other aspects of accounting for post-employment benefits.
This project explored whether a feasible solution could be developed to address hybrid pension plan designs that incorporate features of both defined contribution and defined benefit plans. These hybrid plans generally fall within the definition of defined benefit plans in IAS 19 Employee Benefits but employers and employees share risk. The use of such hybrid plans is increasing in many jurisdictions. Such plans were not envisaged when IAS 19 was first developed.
The feedback from the 2015 Agenda Consultation did not support a comprehensive review of IAS 19. Consequently, except for the narrow-scope feasibility study on pension benefits that depend on asset returns, the Board plans no further work on this project.
Previous discussions
Before this project started, the IFRS Interpretations Committee had attempted to develop a solution to address the accounting for such plans including contribution-based promises. However, the Interpretations Committee removed the project from its agenda in May 2014.
