CrazymarkRe “By incurred, I mean that the impairment event has...

Crazymark

Re “By incurred, I mean that the impairment event has occurred.”

I would interpret ‘incurred’ differently, but that’s not really the point.

Re “Incurred as against "future losses" which used to be allowed.”

It still is ‘allowed’, an impairment provision against loan assets is providing for “future losses.” I guess you could argue your original point of “no forward recognition of expected credit losses is allowed” is correct. Accounting standards don’t ‘allow’ the forward recognition of expected credit losses, they ‘require’ it.

Provisions are forward looking predictions/estimates/guesses etc, they are based on where you expect the economy, credit quality, unemployment etc to go, not where they are now. The Collective provision, announced at over $3B today includes a $510M ‘economic overlay’ which is specifically designed to account for a deterioration in economic conditions. You could argue about its accuracy/adequacy, but your comments suggest it isn’t even there.