Canada’s banking regulator is seeking feedback on two files.
Consultations for the public disclosure of cryptoasset exposures and the 2025 life insurance adequacy test (LICAT) guideline are open until Oct. 22, Tolga Yalkin, assistant superintendent of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ (OSFI) Regulatory Response Sector announced Thursday.
OSFI has published draft amendments to Pillar 3 Disclosure Guidelines to incorporate into the new Basel Committee of Banking Supervision’s disclosure standard. The draft amendments were created with feedback from comments received in an earlier round of public consultation last November.
The present round of consultation includes questions on using materiality thresholds, proportionality and addressing the need for consistency between cryptoasset exposures and other disclosure expectations, such as the disclosure of daily averages and liquidity.
The regulator originally planned for the final guidance to take effect in the last quarter of 2025, but consultation respondents from November said they needed more time. The current consultation proposes the guidance take effect in the first quarter of 2026, in line with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s standards.
Updates to the LICAT for 2025 were published on OSFI’s website Thursday and are also open for consultation. LICAT establishes how the regulator assesses the amount of capital life insurers must maintain to support its risks.
“Updates to LICAT include important changes to the segregated fund guarantee risk section, and minor edits to other sections,” Yalkin said.
The regulator will publish the final LICAT 2025 guideline on Nov. 21 and it will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
As well, OSFI released its final E-21 guideline on operational risk management and resilience for banks. The guideline defines how banks can prepare for shocks and how to recover from them. “[N]on-financial risks like technology, cyber risks and geopolitical risks can become financial risks,” Yalkin said.
Yalkin acknowledged that the guideline reads differently than the draft that was consulted on. “We have simplified the language in the guideline to make it easier to read and more streamlined,” he said. “What’s important are the expectations, and they haven’t changed except for a few areas we adjusted in response to feedback.”
The announcement was part of OSFI’s inaugural pilot to release guidance such as consultations, policy papers and industry notices quarterly, which will help the office become more predictable and transparent about how it informs stakeholders, Yalkin said.
OSFI will address technical questions during its first virtual industry day on Sept. 5. The next quarterly release will be issued on Nov. 21 with a virtual industry day following on Dec. 5.
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