The opinion of Matthew Rider

Can you tell us where Aegon stands on the implementation of IFRS
17? And is it more work than expected?

‘As Aegon operates a bank, we have gained a lot of experience from the implementation of IFRS 9 – the standard for financial instruments applicable in the first instance to the banking sector. Working on that project gave us useful insights for the IFRS 9 program focused on our insurance business. I am happy to say that so far it’s been a wellcoordinated process; ll lights are on green, everything is running normally and we haven’t had any surprises.

IFRS 17 is on track, but it's complicated. We knew it was going to be complicated because we don't actually have a final standard yet. But we do know the building blocks.

Aegon is really pretty much in the middle of the pack as far as I can see in terms of implementation. It was interesting: getting into the IFRS 17 project, I thought there were some advantages of having gone through Solvency II, especially in the European insurance companies, because Solvency II requires you to have really good command of your data and your models. So even though the accounting treatment is somewhat different, just the philosophy of being in total command of your data and your models has really helped us so far in Europe.

The US is working off a different solvency standard called the NAIC Risk Based Capital system. And when I joined Aegon, they had already had a big program in place in the US, something they called Finance and Actuarial Modernisation. So we're using that as the big building block. That's given us a little bit of advantage in the US with respect to IFRS 17 implementation. I think it will all start to coalesce when we come to a final standard.’

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