Summary of OSFI comments at the 15th BCBS-FSI high-level meeting

On January 30, 2020, Ben Gully, Assistant Superintendent, Regulation Sector, met with other senior regulators and supervisors at a Basel Committee on Banking Supervision – Financial Stability Institute high-level meeting on strengthening financial sector supervision and current regulatory priorities.

Mr. Gully discussed the role of supervisors in helping banks manage operational resilience, and OSFI’s work on non-financial risks and operational resilience. He spoke about the key drivers of operational disruption and OSFI’s perspective on the intersection of financial and non-financial risks. Mr. Gully also participated in discussions on international and domestic regulators’ perspectives to improve financial institutions’ operational resilience.

In response to the changing risk landscape, OSFI’s 2019-2022 Strategic Plan introduced a goal focused on improving federally regulated financial institutions’ (FRFIs’) preparedness for and resilience to non-financial risks, before they negatively affect their financial condition. Mr. Gully highlighted a number of efforts OSFI is undertaking, including:

• Focusing supervisory activities on cyber security, third party ecosystems (e.g., cloud services), the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) models, and the role of culture and conduct;
• Re-aligning our organization to build up our capabilities, including and adding staff, expertise and tools to meet these new challenges; and
• Seeking more input from stakeholders outside the traditional financial sector to enhance our knowledge of technology-related risks, with a view to making potential changes in the regulatory framework.

Mr. Gully spoke about OSFI’s forthcoming discussion paper on non-financial risks and technology risks. The objective is to seek input from stakeholders to enhance OSFI’s own understanding of technology risk and operational resilience more broadly. This work will help inform our future approach to regulatory guidance and supervisory expectations. The paper will cover a range of important technology-related risks, including OSFI’s evolving role in cybersecurity, the third party ecosystem, the use of advanced analytics.

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"Through continued engagement with a wide range of experts and regulators, OSFI is able to learn about what will work, and what may not, in the Canadian regulatory context. The upcoming discussion paper on non-financial risks and technology risks will help shape the future of OSFI’s supervision of evolving practices and risks."