The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Canada (FSRA) announced May 4 that it has republished proposed changes to its 2022-001 Assessments and Fees rule for further consultation. Specifically, the fee rule changes reduce fees for the New Self-Regulatory Organization of Canada (New SRO) to reflect the fact that the New SRO is already overseen by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).
“FSRA is proposing an amendment to the fee rule that, if approved, would reduce New SRO’s fees, recognising that the OSC already provides oversight of its activities,” FSRA states in its call for comment. “FSRA, the OSC and New SRO are working together to ensure that New SRO’s participation as a credentialling body under the title protection framework would not result in regulatory duplication.”
The original FSRA fee rule came into force in June 2019, at which time the regulator committed to revisiting and reviewing the rule three years later. “This review is a one-time commitment to update the initial fees set during FSRA’s start-up phase, to ensure fees align and reflect FSRA’s updated fee rule vision and principles,” the regulator’s notice of changes states.
“FSRA considered not making any changes to the 2022 fee rule. However, such an approach would not support FSRA’s vision and principles of regulatory effectiveness, efficiency and fairness. The proposed approach mitigates regulatory duplication and burden and ensures participants pay their fair share of costs.”
During the first 90-day consultation period, launched in November 2022, FSRA received more than 20 stakeholder submissions and comments. The second consultation on the proposed amendments closes June 2, 2023.
