Fostering Public Confidence
Thriving in Uncertainty
Transforming for Tomorrow
2022-2025 Strategic Plan
In 2021, we developed the Blueprint for OSFI's Transformation 2022-2025. The Blueprint is an important self-examination articulating the direction for our transformation taking into account the rapidly changing risk environment.
OSFI's 2022-2025 Strategic Plan is the next step in our transformation. It not only sets out our goals and priorities for the next three years, it outlines the concrete actions that we will take to ensure that we continue to contribute to confidence in Canada's financial system. While the Strategic Plan largely focuses on our transformation, continuing our tradition of excellence through the delivery of our on-going business remains an important part of what we do.
At the heart of our transformation are three foundational elements. The work and initiatives we undertake are designed to support and ensure that these elements are not only fully realised but are the raison d'être for everything we do:
- Mandate – refocus the delivery of our mandate to place greater emphasis on contributing to public confidence in the Canadian financial system
- Risk Appetite – expand and fortify risk management capabilities and risk appetite to support strategic and operational management
- Culture – embed our corporate values so that individuals can flourish within an operating environment of increasing uncertainty
We invite you to watch a video message from our Superintendent, Peter Routledge and read the context for our Strategic Plan. The Blueprint and Strategic Plan has six transformation initiatives. Please click below to find out more about our commitment to each of them.
Message from the Superintendent
Video transcript
Hello,
As the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, I am pleased to share with you today OSFI's 2022-2025 Strategic Plan. This Plan is our way forward and puts into action our ambitious transformation agenda.
In particular, the Strategic Plan outlines the path we will take to achieve the foundational changes we seek; including how we focus our mandate to increase public confidence; expand our risk appetite and management practices, as well as undertaking culture change. These fundamental changes are central to all we do. This Strategic Plan ensures that we concentrate our efforts towards bringing the Blueprint to life.
While OSFI has had an impressive record of accomplishment in helping to keep Canada’s financial system resilient, we know that going forward we need to be prepared and well positioned to not only react, but also adapt quickly to a changing risk environment.
OSFI's Blueprint set in motion our transformational journey, one that will ensure that we continue to thrive in intensifying uncertainty so that the public’s confidence in a sound financial system remains unwavering.
The Strategic Plan builds on this vision. As I have said before, the Blueprint is our “True North”, our compass - and the Strategic Plan is the map that will guide us.
Our ongoing work continues to be an integral part of what we do; however, this Plan focuses on our transformation. In it, you will find our goals and priorities for each of the six transformation initiatives and the criteria we will use to measure our success.
As we have done in the past, we will continue to report publicly on our progress throughout the duration of this Plan.
This is an exciting time for OSFI, one in which we will embrace innovation, agility as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion as we live our shared values. We will also refine the way that we approach and manage risk as we refocus the delivery of our mandate.
All of us will have a part to play in bringing this transformation to life. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.
Thank you.
A. Context
A rapidly changing risk environment
Over the first 20 years of this century, Canada's financial system has endured multiple bouts of volatility. In Canada, we weathered these periods well. Looking ahead, however, it is evident that the risks we face are now more complex and interrelated than ever before.
It is evident to us that volatility will arise from several identifiable sources. While we may not know their trajectory, known or emerged risks such as climate change and digitalization, are already shaping how we work, how we manage risk, and how we regulate and supervise. Going forward, we can fully expect that uncertainty will emerge from other, not yet identified sources. Our ability to identify risks early, to respond quickly and fulsomely to the most urgent ones, will be critical moving forward.
The degree of complexity and interconnectedness of the risk-environment also means that the boundaries of our role and influence are expanding. Now, more than ever before, our involvement on public policy matters is intensifying and Canadians expect that we should be part of effective responses to key macro-risk issues in the financial system.
The focus of our Strategic Plan
Text description: The focus of our Strategic Plan
The Blueprint's 3 foundational elements:
- Enhancing our Culture to thrive in increasing uncertainty
- Re-focusing the delivery of OSFI's Mandate
- Expanding and fortifying Risk Management
are supported by 6 transformative initiatives:
The Strategic Plan brings to life our transformation by providing a framework to build alignment and guide decision-making. While it concentrates on our transformation, OSFI will not divert our focus from our core business activities and our critical enabling functions, which need to continue to provide us with strong capabilities that we can confidently leverage to support our transformation.
The Blueprint lays-out three foundational elements and six transformation initiatives. The three foundational elements reflect the fundamental change and directional imperative for our transformation. They are truly our "North Star" and need to be at the heart of all we do. The Strategic Plan has been created so that each of the initiatives supports the realisation the foundational elements.
These elements include an outward facing dimension through our mandate; the direction and focus we have to help support continued resilience in the face of a complicated risk environment as well as a critical inward facing imperative; the need to ensure that a vibrant and dynamic culture steeped in our core values is at the heart of all we do.
Committing to the Transformation
The Strategic Plan articulates concrete actions and outcomes for our transformation agenda and signals the start of "new ways of working"; however, this has already begun. OSFI's Executive Committee asked a group of senior leaders to create OSFI's Strategic Plan, rather than develop it through a traditional "top down" approach. Trusting this group of leaders aligns with the spirit of the Blueprint and the new direction in which we are heading, allowing for broader inclusion in determining the future of OSFI.
Further, we also recognize the importance of setting the right foundation for executing on the Strategic Plan. This includes embedding strong leadership and thoughtful change management into our efforts. That is why we are establishing a new and empowered Transformation Office to oversee our transformation and coordinate enterprise-wide change management. In doing so, we are ensuring that our transformation becomes an integral function of our business going forward.
B. Our Strategic Initiatives
Culture Initiatives
Where are we going?
We will build a workplace where differences are embraced, where curiosity and innovation are celebrated, where people feel valued, and where leaders empower employees to take intelligent risks.
What are we doing?
Nurture a workplace where our desired values and culture thrive
- Articulate one vision of our cultural future state to thrive in the changing risk environment.
- Refresh and execute our human capital strategy to reflect our desired culture evolution and risk appetite.
- Advance our in-flight diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at all levels and operations of the organization.
- Allocate time, resources, and structure to support continuous professional growth and innovation.
- Develop culture metrics to monitor progress towards our desired culture and DE&I objectives, and to use as an input to performance evaluation.
Modernize how we work, hire, promote and incentivize our people
- Leverage lessons learned from the pandemic to build a flexible hybrid workplace.
- Prioritize efficiency over process in all we do to support our critical work.
- Expand options for onboarding and for transitioning talent.
- Simplify performance evaluation and shift its emphasis onto behavioural competencies and core values.
Empower leaders to support our transformation and take decisions
- Hold our leaders accountable to lead the transformation from the front.
- Promote a change mindset throughout the organization.
- Establish an organizational design that empowers decision-making and supports delegation.
What does success look like?
- OSFI continues to be recognized as a top employer and offers a modern, flexible workplace.
- Our employees dedicate an additional 10% of their time to professional growth and innovation.
- Performance evaluation and rewards incentivize our values and culture at all levels.
- Culture and diversity, equity and inclusion metrics demonstrate sustained improvement.
- Decision-making is efficient and delegated to the appropriate level.
Risk, Strategy and Governance
Where are we going?
We will establish an independent and well-resourced Chief Strategy and Risk Office to make risk-intelligent decisions informed by our risk appetite and delegated to those best positioned to make them.
What are we doing?
Make bold and courageous risk-intelligent decisions driven by our expanded risk program and risk appetite
- Develop an enterprise-wide risk appetite framework (RAF) that defines the risks that we are consciously willing to take in the pursuit of our mandate and implement an effective 2nd line challenge function over our operations and business activities.
- Use the RAF as the foundation of our governance, the common language spoken to articulate, communicate and debate risk, to support all operational and business decisions, and to inform our culture.
- Structure our risk reporting and performance metrics to be aligned to our RAF.
Proactively influence policymaking to strengthen public confidence in the Canadian financial system by accelerating our understanding and risk response to macro risks and trends
- Create a centralized and dedicated applied research group to scan the environment for emerging risks, regulatory developments and other relevant trends by drawing on stress testing and advanced analytics.
- Draw on cutting-edge external expertise through the use of business advisory committees to accelerate the development of our views on new risks and cross-cutting issues.
- Ensure our participation and position in various national and international forums are coordinated and aligned with our strategy.
Fully leverage our governance structure to support an agile risk response, delegation of decision-making authority and taking action within our risk appetite
- Explore the creation of an independent and external Board-type risk advisory council.
- Implement an internal governance and decision-making structure, consistent with our risks, that supports transparent decisions made at the right level.
What does success look like?
- Our engagement with a diverse set of stakeholders informs our risk postures.
- The creation of an external board-type risk advisory council strengthens our governance structure.
- We make business decisions and prioritize initiatives within the tolerances of our risk appetite.
- Our contributions to forums on key risks are consistent with our risk appetite and strategy.
Strategic Stakeholder and Partner Engagement
Where are we going?
We will maximize our influence and contribute to public policy matters in a value-added way by taking a strategic approach with partners, stakeholders and the public.
What are we doing?
Develop a deliberate and coordinated approach to strategic stakeholder management
- Establish a formal strategic stakeholder relations function to ensure that our positions are strategically and consistently conveyed to partners, stakeholders and the public.
- Expand our stakeholder monitoring and leverage tools and processes to better integrate views from external stakeholders, which will allow us to be more aware of the stakeholder environment in which we operate.
- Maximize the impact of our work by broadening our outreach activities to a more diverse set of stakeholders, partners and the public.
Partner and stakeholder engagement plans are part of our strategic risk response
- Develop a concrete partner and stakeholder engagement plan for every strategic issue or risk.
- Use appropriate subject matter experts to foster reciprocal relationships and build trust through transparency with the partners, stakeholders and the public.
- Engage FISC partners early to gather their insights and be forthright in sharing our perspectives so we are coordinated in a strategic risk response within the context of our respective mandates.
- Further leverage our partnerships to advance initiatives of mutual interest.
Leverage the public role of the Superintendent and Chief Actuary
- Strategically assess and increase opportunities for the Superintendent and Chief Actuary to be more transparent with the public and stakeholders.
- Amplify public awareness about our business, narrative and positions using deliberate strategies and campaigns with the goal of maximizing our influence and credibility.
- Implement measurement tools to assess our success in building awareness, transparency and credibility.
What does success look like?
- The roles of the Superintendent and Chief Actuary are seen as credible and reliable, and enhance public confidence in Canada's financial system.
- Our relationships with partners and stakeholders are collaborative and impactful.
- We present a consistent narrative about our position and/or work.
Policy Innovation
Where are we going?
We will strengthen our strategic risk response through a policy architecture that embraces innovation and is informed by our risk appetite, while remaining principles based.
What are we doing?
Evolve our policy response to strategic risks based on our risk appetite
- Create policy architecture that integrates research, stakeholder management, risk appetite, legislative authorities which results in development of policy instruments that are supervisable.
- Exploit synergies between policy development and stakeholder management functions.
- Innovate our regulatory practices to respond more proactively to both emerging risks, such as climate change and digitalization, as well as future unanticipated changes in the risk environment.
- Develop and implement a strategic risk response framework that reflects a life cycle through risk identification and analysis, to policy setting, and ongoing supervision.
- Calibrate our risk response, leveraging policy products that are fit for purpose.
- Use risk appetite to support any exceptions to our principles-based approach to policy development.
Embrace innovation through our policy tools
- Develop innovative policy responses to emerging and strategic risks by leveraging different perspectives and specialized talent and skillsets.
- Communicate our expectations without always anchoring to detailed guidelines.
- Experiment and innovate with an iterative 'test and learn' policy development for specific emerging risks.
- Make guidance instruments more accessible and appealing to a broader range of stakeholders by leveraging technology innovation including reg-tech.
Enhance policy development processes to be more agile
- Strive to ensure guidance is more principles-based which provides us with flexibility to clarify expectations.
- Commit to a shorter time to market for a guideline as a pre-requisite to unlocking efficiencies created by a principles-based guidance architecture.
- Formulate policy decisions that are informed by the broader eco-system as well as operational realities, authorities and budgetary constraints.
- Develop processes that facilitate more timely and proactive policy responses to emerging risks.
- Drive culture shifts at all levels of the organization necessary to embrace public scrutiny where appropriate.
- Continually assess whether policy tools remain relevant to the current environment.
What does success look like?
- Policy development is guided by our risk appetite, informed by research, data and analytics, and supported by an effective stakeholder engagement strategy.
- Our strategy to address digitalization and climate risk reflects a strategic risk response framework with clear accountabilities and robust governance.
- A 'test and learn' use case is piloted related to regulatory approvals (e.g. facilitate ease of entry for institutions with non-traditional business models).
- OSFI is viewed as a global leader where appropriate, able to influence public policy through a demonstrated ability to proactively respond to new and emerging risks.
- Policy architecture and timeframes for reviewing policy tools are clearly established.
- Our inventory of legacy guidance is reviewed in the light of changing risk environment.
Supervisory Framework
Where are we going?
We will evolve our supervisory practices to promote public confidence in Canada's financial system through best in-class supervisory tools fit for evolving risks and for rapid transformation in the financial services sector.
What are we doing?
Modernize our Supervisory Framework to ensure it remains fit for purpose, today and tomorrow
- Recalibrate to better capture the impact of systemic and macro-centric risks on the risk profile of our federally regulated financial institutions and federally regulated pension plans.
- Build flexibility to accommodate new and unforeseen risks, the interplay between financial and non-financial risks, as well as non-traditional business models.
- Further leverage data and advanced analytics and explore use of Suptech to promote a more risk-based approach to supervision and to inform our future data strategy ("Vision 2030").
- Plan for regular and holistic refreshes of our Supervisory Framework.
Strive to achieve simplicity, standardization and greater use of data in our supervisory processes
- Simplify, standardize and align our supervisory management systems to the new Supervisory Framework.
- Streamline our supervisory processes, removing unnecessary administrative burden, and better leverage our judgement and instincts.
- Make greater use of data and analytics to drive our supervisory risk ratings.
Build greater risk appetite for earlier corrective actions
- Build greater differentiation in our overall FRFI risk ratings, particularly for Stage 0 institutions.
- Empower our staff to make more timely supervisory decisions based on incomplete information.
- Increase our agility to respond to macro-centric risks by further developing our portfolio analytics capabilities.
- Revise our framework for the approval and supervision of new entrants to better support the concept of "ease of entry" and "ease of exit".
What does success look like?
- Modernization of OSFI's Supervisory Framework is completed by April 1, 2024.
- Our supervision management system meets supervisors' needs.
- A revised new entrant framework is in place.
- Our approach to supervision is strategic, guided by our risk appetite, and driven by data and analytics.
Data Management and Analytics
Where are we going?
We will develop a future-proof, best-in-class “Vision 2030” data and analytics strategy that is business led, peer aware, and informed by our regulated entities’ data vision.
What are we doing?
Become a leading data and analytics driven regulator that makes well-informed decisions and is able to supervise and regulate pro-actively to changes in the risk environment
- Lead an industry-wide initiative to drive towards standardization of, and access to, risk and regulatory data, including posture on use cases of Regtech and Suptech (i.e., machine-readable guidelines).
- Build on our data strategy by developing a holistic plan for "Vision 2030", encompassing our business data needs and considering non-conventional sources of data.
- Continuously evaluate data strategy initiatives with "Vision 2030" to ensure alignment and make changes as required.
Continuously improve our data technology infrastructure to support leading-edge data and analytical capabilities
- Accelerate our in-flight initiatives to modernize data collection and advanced analytics in the short to medium term.
- Plan for the technology infrastructure build necessary to support "Vision 2030" and benchmark spend to peer regulators.
- Build on OSFI's internal data and information systems, especially in areas like recruitment and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Make investments to build, support, and promote the development of leaders and staff in becoming agile, proficient, and forward-looking in data trends and analytics
- Centralize and empower data and technology from a support function to a business function and right-size core analytics through benchmarking relative to peers.
- Establish terms of reference and draw on relevant external expertise to create an Analytics Advisory Committee in support of continuous improvement in our data and analytics capabilities.
- Make data and analytics part of our culture DNA by extensively investing in data literacy programs for all employees.
What does success look like?
- Our business decisions are informed by exceptional analysis and insights.
- OSFI has an enhanced ability to ingest and analyze data from various sources on new and emerging risks beyond structured regulatory returns.
- OSFI internal data and systems lead to robust and timely operational decisions.
- Our leaders and staff have the elevated data literacy and analytical acumen necessary to perform their work.
- Data standardization reduce the need for ad hoc data requests.