Financial Statements of Banks as a Source of Information About Implementation of IFRS 15: The Evidence from Poland

Banks in the economies of individual countries play the role of entities of public trust and are perceived as “too big to fail”. In fact, they are exposed to risks associated with business operations. In practice, there are even instances of banks going bankrupt. Therefore, the reliability of the financial statements of a bank as a source of information about its financial condition is of particular importance. The main objective of creating IAS/IFRS and their implementation within the European Union is the strive to standardize accounting rules utilized by companies and other organizations. IFRS, as any other regulations, are subject to change over years. One of the recent changes is the introduction of IFRS 15 “Revenue from Contracts with Customers”. In all entities using IAS/IFRS, communication of planned changes should involve disclosure ahead of time, regarding the analysis of their impact on the financial statements. The purpose of this paper has been to analyze whether the financial statements of banks contain any records on the impact of IFRS 15. These analyses are within the mainstream of studying how complete and prospective is the information contained in the financial statements for external users. The subjects for research are the consolidated financial statements of five major banks in Poland. As a result of research, it was found that in all studied cases, work on the implementation of IFRS 15 was observed. However, looking at every bank separately, a differentiated approach to presenting information on the standard is observed, which may be a hindrance for users of banks’ financial statements.