The Financial Services Commission of Ontario has published its latest statement of priorities, setting out its plans for the coming year.

Legislation requires FSCO to deliver its statement to the Minister of Finance by June 30 of each year. The statement identifies key challenges facing FSCO, outlines proposed strategic priorities, and reports recent progress on significant projects.

The regulator sets outs its strategic priorities as promoting a coordinated national approach to regulatory issues; enhancing its risk-based approach to regulation; reviewing and recommending amendments to the regulatory framework to keep pace with changes in the marketplace; and, improving its delivery of services.

Among its specific plans, FSCO says it will continue work on assessing and harmonizing point of sale disclosure for segregated funds and mutual funds; work with the Financial Services Ombudsnetwork to define performance standards for dispute resolution services; identify problems resulting from differences in investment rules for pension funds, mutual funds and other pooled investment funds; examine the regulation of intermediaries and recommend ways to minimize possible conflicts; promote equivalent consumer protection, focusing initially on intermediaries who sell mutual funds and seg funds.

It also pledges to undertake a review of the guidelines for Capital Accumulation Plans that were released by the Joint Forum in 2004; continue the development of a model pension statute; continue to monitor the achievement of principles for managing conflicts of interest in the insurance industry; and, assist regulators in the adoption of methods for collecting insurance company complaint data, with the goal of creating a national complaint reporting data system.