Canada’s banking regulator seeks comments on two documents.
Consultations on public disclosure of crypto-asset exposures and guidelines for the Life Insurance Adequacy Test (LICAT) 2025 are open until October 22, Tolga Yalkin, deputy director of the Regulatory Response Sector at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), said on Thursday.
OSFI has published draft amendments to the Pillar 3 Disclosure Guidelines for inclusion in the Basel Committee of Banking Supervision’s new disclosure standard. The draft amendments were developed based on feedback received in the previous round of public consultations in November of last year.
The current round of consultation includes questions on the application of materiality thresholds, proportionality and addressing the need to ensure consistency between crypto-asset exposure and other disclosure expectations, such as the disclosure of daily averages and liquidity.
The regulator had originally planned for the final guidelines to come into effect in the last quarter of 2025, but respondents to the November consultation said they needed more time. The current consultation proposes that the guidelines come into effect in the first quarter of 2026, in line with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision standards.
LICAT’s 2025 updates were published on OSFI’s website on Thursday and are also open for consultation. LICAT sets out how the regulator assesses the amount of capital life insurers must hold to cover their risks.
“The LICAT updates include important changes to the section on segregated fund guarantee risk and minor corrections to other sections,” Yalkin said.
The regulator will publish the final version of the LICAT 2025 Guidelines on 21 November, and they will become applicable from 1 January 2025.
In addition, OSFI released its final E-21 guidance on managing operational risk and bank resilience. The guidance outlines how banks can prepare for and recover from shocks. “Financial risks, such as technology risk, cyber risk, and geopolitical risk, can become financial risks,” Yalkin said.
Yalkin acknowledged that the guidelines read differently than the draft that was the subject of the consultation. “We have simplified the language in the guidelines to make them easier to read and more organized,” he said. “What is important is the expectations, which have not changed, apart from a few areas that we have adjusted in response to feedback.”
Yalkin said the announcement was part of OSFI’s first pilot, which publishes quarterly guidance such as consultations, policy papers and industry alerts, making the office more predictable and transparent about how it communicates with stakeholders.
OSFI will address technical issues at its first virtual industry day on September 5. The next quarterly report will be released on November 21, and a virtual industry day will be held on December 5.
