Assessment of Basel III capital regulations in Canada concluded by the Basel Committee

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has today published a report assessing Canada's implementation of the Basel capital framework.

Overall, Canada's implementation was found to be "compliant" with the standards prescribed under the Basel framework. Thirteen of the 14 components assessed were graded as "compliant", while one component - the definition of capital - was assessed as being "largely compliant" with the Basel standards. This outcome recognises the April 2014 amendments to the Canadian capital rules made by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) during the assessment to further align its capital rules with the Basel framework.

The assessment team also notes that some aspects of Canada's capital rules are more rigorous than required under the Basel framework. OSFI has brought forward the 2019 Basel capital ratio requirements to 2013 in the target capital ratios applied to all banks.

To assess Canada's compliance with the international Basel capital standards, the Committee's assessment team held discussions with senior officials and technical staff of OSFI, senior representatives from the six largest Canadian banks, one audit firm and three credit rating agencies.

The report published today is the ninth in a series of reports on Basel Committee members' implementation of Basel III risk-based minimum capital standards under the Committee's Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme (RCAP). The Basel Committee has already published on its website reports on Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Singapore and Switzerland and preliminary reports on the European Union and the United States. Follow-up assessments of the final Basel III rules in the European Union and the United States are under way.

The RCAP reflects the Committee's continuing efforts to promote timely adoption of its standards and to monitor its members' full and consistent compliance with the Basel framework. The RCAP also helps member jurisdictions to identify deviations from the Basel framework, weigh the materiality of any deviations and undertake necessary reforms.