The G20 group of finance ministers and central bank governors has criticised delays in the convergence of accounting standards and called on standard-setters to resolve key differences by the end of the year.

The commnique, issued at the conclusion of last week's G20 meeting in Moscow, stated: 'We note with concern the delays in the convergence of accounting standards to date and ask the IASB [International Accounting Standards Board] and the FASB [US Financial Accounting Standards Board] to finalise by the end of 2013 their work on key outstanding projects for achieving a single set of high-quality standards.'

The meeting received a report from the IASB and FASB on the status and timeline of their remaining projects on converging their standards. This was in response to a request made at an earlier G20 meeting in November 2012 where concern was also noted on the slow progress of convergence, with a particular focus on financial instruments impairment.

The IASB-FASB report was submitted to the meeting by the Financial Stability Board (FSB). The FSB's summary, Progress of Financial Regulatory Reforms says the two boards expect to make progress on the two key outstanding issues by the end of the year. These are the impairment of loans, where the boards expect to complete their deliberations in 2013, and insurance contracts, where both boards will be holding public consultations this year.

The summary says that of these two outstanding issues, the need for convergence on a new forward-looking expected loss approach to provisioning is of most immediate concern for end-users and from a financial stability perspective.

In view of concerns about the delays in convergence, the FSB recommends that the G20 ask the IASB and FASB to prepare by a roadmap for converging to a common approach for impairment and for achieving the G20 objective of a single set of high quality accounting standards. The deadline for delivering the roadmap is the end of 2013.