Why You Need to Hear This Story?

Picture this: You’re a high-flying banker, who just handed over billions to a man interested in buying Twitter (now X) with a track record of launching cars into space and tanking Dogecoin with a tweet.

On paper, it all looked solid, regular interest payments, a borrower with an empire, and a business model that, at least in theory, wasn’t built on chaos.

Then, suddenly, half the staff at X are gone, advertisers are fleeing, and your “stable investment” is looking shakier. This is the saga of Musk’s $13 billion Twitter debt, a financial thriller unfolding in real-time, and a perfect case study in how banks classify investments under IFRS 9.

Wait, IFRS 9? That Sounds Boring.

Ordinarily, yes. But not today.

In this episode, I have explained the accounting treatment of investment in debt from the perspective of banks. Here is the summary

• Amortised Cost (the “I’ll hold this till maturity” approach).
• FVOCI (the “I’d like an exit plan, before maturity” approach).
• FVTPL (the “let’s buy and sell and call it trading” strategy).

This isn’t just about Musk, banks, or IFRS 9. It’s about how financial institutions navigate uncertainty. Money moves in unpredictable ways. Despite their best efforts, even the most powerful banks can find themselves playing catch-up to a billionaire posting memes at 3 AM.

I hope you enjoy listening to my first episode. If you have any IFRS topic, you want me to discuss, please feel free to let me know.