Credit Union Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for Deposit Insurance Reserve Fund (DIRF)

Date: October 31, 2023
Time: 10:00 – 11:30 am
Location: Virtual
Attendees: See Appendix A

This meeting of the TAC for Deposit Insurance Reserve Fund focused on the following agenda items:

  1. Overview of DIRF
  2. DIRF Adequacy Assessment

Overview of the DIRF

Overview

FSRA provided a background on the DIRF:

  • requirement to maintain a DIRF
  • uses of the DIRF funds
  • governance of the DIRF
  • management of the DIRF funds
  • DIRF anticipated to reach the 100 bps target by 2025-2026, in the absence of any material uses of DIRF Funds

Cross-jurisdictional comparison of DIRF funds across the country and in the US

  • Ontario has the lowest DIRF target of any provincial jurisdiction and the lowest funding on an insured deposit coverage basis.

DIRF Adequacy Assessment

Overview

Summary of the 2023 DIRF Adequacy Assessment work completed in collaboration with Deloitte was discussed, including the enhancement to the model with respect to the inclusion of liquidity stress testing.

Results for each of the three scenarios under the 3- and 5-year time horizons were presented, including Deloitte’s rationale for the determination of their recommended DIRF size (173 bps under the 5-year “Liquidity Crunch” stress scenario).

Deloitte’s final report outlined areas of additional data elements that FSRA should collect to further enhance the stress testing results. All data elements outlined in the report are included in the scope of Enhanced Data Collection program. Recommendation to Minister of Finance to maintain the current DIRF target at 100bps and make no changes to the deposit insurance funding formula in the Ontario Regulation 105/22 for the next year.

During the next year, FSRA will work with the Ministry and the credit union sector to determine if the 100 bps target is still appropriate to ensure public confidence in the sector and provide protection for the insured depositors.

FSRA outlined that in addition to the discussion around the DIRF, discussions about the steps that both FSRA and credit unions can take to mitigate the potential and likelihood of high stress losses are needed to help inform the determination of DIRF funding target and deposit insurance premiums.

FSRA provided an overview of the work undertaken to bring the DIRF adequacy assessment work “in-house” in preparation for the completion of the 2024 assessment work.

Questions and feedback

  1. Member asked about the inclusion of a more severe recession as a possible additional scenario.

    FSRA responded that while other scenarios could have been developed, it was determined that the three scenarios developed by the Deloitte economic team provided appropriate “mild”, “adverse” and “severe” scenarios.

  2. Member asked if a formal plan had been developed for the collaboration work over the next year.

    No formal plan has been developed but kick-off meeting with the Ministry of Finance is scheduled for November.

  3. In response to request for greater involvement of the TAC, FSRA asked what frequency for touchpoint/discussions to take place. FSRA suggested a 1-hour meeting on a monthly basis.

    Members suggested that a monthly frequency may be too frequent, and it was decided to determine the appropriate frequency on an ad-hoc basis as the need requires.

  4. Member asked if a summary for the meeting would be posted as per the current Term of Reference.

    Yes, a summary of the discussion would be provided to all TAC members and posted to the FSRA website.

  5. Member commented that they were not sure if FSRA is actioning upon “advice” from the Committee (from last November’s TAC meeting).

    As discussed during the meeting, due to the lack of fulsome data from the sector, the 2023 assessment work required industry proxies and expert judgment by Deloitte to complete the analysis. Once the fulsome data (delivered through the EDC) has been received from the sector, FSRA will seek input into the assessment of the adequacy of the DIRF.

  6. Member asked if there would be a cost reduction once FSRA is no longer working with Deloitte.

    Cost will not be reduced as the funds for the Deloitte work have been allocated to increasing the resources for the stress testing team to be able to not only complete the DIRF assessment work but as well as work related to ongoing monitoring and RBSF assessments.

Appendix A: Attendance record

Invited/Attended

Company name

Attendance status
(A)ttended; (R)egrets; (S)ubstitute;
Shad Rafi FSRA A
Bradley Hodgins FSRA A
Dan Oprescu FSRA A
Howard Hao FSRA A
Mingxin Li FSRA A
David Maxwell FSRA A
Drake Reid Motor City Credit Union A
Melinda TeKare Libro Credit Union A
Brent Furtney Canadian Credit Union Association A
John Doran FirstOntario Credit Union A
Mahmood Nawab Alterna Savings & Credit Union A
Sunil Gandhi Meridian Credit Union A
Martin Blais Caisse Desjardins A
Maryse Gauvin Caisse Alliance A
Mike Andrews A.Michael Andrews and Associates Ltd. A