Accounting

The bipartisan House effort to delay the Current Expected Credit Loss standard comes less than a month after Republican senators introduced a similar bill.

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The effort to delay CECL comes a week after a House panel mounted a bipartisan attack on the new FASB standard.

Both Democrats and Republicans devoted considerable time at a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week to lamenting how the accounting standard will hurt small lenders.

National Credit Union Administration Chairman Rodney Hood’s testimony Thursday was reportedly the first time in three years the agency has appeared before the House Financial Services Committee.

Democrats and Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee called for steps to minimize the harm to community banks and credit unions bracing for the new accounting standard.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants says banks are fighting accounting fatigue — thank CECL for that — and wants the FASB to push back a deadline for privately held firms to put operating leases on their balance sheets.

Banking officials can reasonably disagree on new standards for current expected credit losses, but the accounting body developed the rules over many years and based them on extensive feedback.

The standards board has been granted vast authority without having to answer to policymakers, and its latest accounting method, CECL, will be a disaster for small banks.