Last week, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) issued its final guideline on total loss absorbing capacity (TLAC) disclosure requirements for Canadian domestic systemically-important banks (D-SIBs).

The new guideline sets out the format, timing and location of the TLAC disclosure requirements, among other things.

The new guideline further requires that D-SIBs begin publicly disclosing the required TLAC information on a quarterly basis, beginning with the quarter ending January 31, 2019.  While TLAC disclosure requirements start in the first quarter of 2019, D-SIBs will have until November 1, 2021 to fully meet the minimum TLAC requirements.

The new guideline directly aligns with the standards applied to global systemically-important banks (G-SIBs), which are being adopted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS).

In addition, the new guideline updates the capital disclosure requirements for all federally regulated deposit-taking institutions, which removes transitional provisions that no longer apply.

The new guideline makes final the draft guideline on TLAC Disclosure Requirements which OSFI had issued on March 21, 2018.  That guideline had set out disclosure requirements with respect to TLAC levels.