Budget 2025 - no more registered account transfer fees | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Lodown said
So "draft" regulations in Spring 2026. How long does it take to go from from "draft" to "law"?

"To improve choice and lower costs for financial consumers, the government has proposed measures to help Canadians switch between financial institutions and to increase fee transparency:

Budget 2025 announced that the government intends to publish draft regulations by spring 2026 to prohibit investment and registered account transfer fees, currently costing Canadians on average $150 per account.
Budget 2025 announced the government’s intention to explore improving the transparency of cross-border transfer fees, including foreign exchange costs, for banks, as non-transparent pricing is causing consumers to pay more than expected to send their money internationally.
Budget 2025 announced that the government intends to work with banks on ways to simplify the process of switching primary chequing accounts to other Canadian financial institutions.
The government has requested the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to prepare a report on the structure, level, and transparency of fees charged by Canadian banks."

Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/depar.....y.html  

If there are no legislative changes required, the Regulation changes can be done via Order-in-Council. Typically, this requires publishing a notice in Canada Gazette Part II (https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/pu.....ng.html#a2), providing a regulatory public comment period, and then the federal cabinet will set an in force date. I would expect this to be in place by the end of the spring 2026 session of Parliament, so call it June 2026. If legislative changes are needed, then I'd say end of 2026, or January 2027 at the latest.

This is a much overdue step. The banks have dragged their heels on this for over 25 years. They initially begged for voluntary commitments through the Canadian Bankers Association. Then the feds got tougher and enshrined some of the commitments into Regulations. That has proven insufficient, so the government is going to dictate to them. And so they should. Banks are not private businesses that can do whatever they want; on the contrary, they're a restricted, special type of business, requiring Minister of Finance and OSFI approvals to operate in Canada. As such, they are a public utility.

Given the affordability issues in Canada, this is an easy political win, particularly since EQ Bank and Wealthsimple are supportive, and the government is eager to curry favour with Westlake and Katchen.

Cheers,
Doug