ABSTRACT
I am an accountant working within the investment banking industry assisting European and Asian corporates, insurers and retail banks in understanding the implications of IFRS for all types of financial instruments, from simple products such as convertible bonds through to complex investment and hedging strategies. I have encountered the main financial product areas that an investment bank typically covers: fixed income, equities, credit, commodities, capital markets, foreign exchange, project finance and securitization. The high-profile accounting scandals such as those which brought down Enron and WorldCom have highlighted the importance for investment banks to understand the accounting implications for their clients of derivative-based transactions, both from a regulatory perspective and from a client expectation perspective. Increasingly, clients are requiring third party help to comprehend the new accounting rules and their application to complicated structures.
