The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) has either postponed or temporarily eased many initiatives in its efforts to enable financial institutions across the kingdom to focus on their coronavirus-related support programmes for clients.

SAMA has postponed the annual supervisory visits, audits and internal evaluations of capital adequacy for 2020 to support banks in focusing on providing the best services to their clients.

Supervisory and inspection visits to the finance companies are also postponed until further notice. Moreover, SAMA postponed the delivery of annual data to finance companies with the updated forms certified by the external auditor from April 4, 2020, to May 7, 2020, Saudi Press Agency reported.

In addition, the regulator has postponed the issuance and application of some policies, including: the final instructions related to the methodology for calculating allocations for banks operating in the kingdom, which was scheduled to be announced in the first quarter of 2020.

It has also postponed the implementation of Basel III reform procedures, which were to be implemented on January 1, 2022.

SAMA also postponed field inspection activities to companies operating in the insurance sector, and alternatively focusing on remote examination programs to verify the efficiency of the companies' operations, the claims settlement mechanism and the quality of services provided to the beneficiaries of insurance coverage.

SAMA has temporarily eased the regulatory requirements for companies operating in the insurance sector to launch electronic applications and extended the deadline for submitting some supervisory data and precautionary reports.

Banks and finance companies operating in the kingdom have been approved for procedures related to accounting for some operations. This includes a commitment to include the expected impact of the coronavirus crisis in financial reports in accordance with the Ninth International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS9), while ensuring that these expectations are logical and in coordination with external auditors, and taking into account the support programs provided by SAMA.

(Writing by Seban Scaria, editing by Daniel Luiz)

( seban.scaria@refinitiv.com)

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