How FCAC’s Revised Complaint-Handling Guideline Raises Expectations for Banks

The FCAC's revised Complaint-Handling Guideline will require banks to revisit complaint-handling policies, escalation procedures, consumer communications and systemic-issue monitoring before its June 23, 2027 effective date. The revised Guideline introduces an explicit 56-day complaint-handling period, formalizes two consumer-facing notices, expands remediation expectations and establishes more prescriptive information-sharing requirements. Below, we explain what changed, who is affected and what banks should do to prepare.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (“FCAC”) has published a revised Guideline on Complaint-Handling Procedures for Banks and Authorized Foreign Banks (the “Guideline”), which takes effect on June 23, 2027 and replaces the version that has been in force since June 30, 2022.

The Guideline sets out the FCAC’s updated expectations for how banks (including federal credit unions) and authorized foreign banks (collectively, “Banks”) implement the complaint-handling requirements under the Bank Act and the Financial Consumer Protection Framework Regulations.

While the overall architecture is familiar, the revised Guideline introduces a number of substantive changes, including an explicit, non-pausable 56-day complaint-handling period, two newly formalized consumer-facing notices, a shift in language from “reimbursement” to “remediation,” and expanded expectations around systemic-issue analysis, accessibility, and information-sharing with external complaints bodies.

With the revised Guideline taking effect on June 23, 2027, Banks should begin assessing the gap between their existing complaint-handling policies and procedures (“Policies and Procedures”) and the revised expectations.

Key Takeaways

• The revised Guideline takes effect June 23, 2027, giving Banks approximately one year to update their Policies and Procedures, systems and consumer communications.
• The FCAC now expressly references the 56-day prescribed period for dealing with complaints and states that it should not be paused for any reason; where the period is exceeded for reasons beyond a Bank’s control, the Bank is expected to document and record the reason for the delay.
• Two consumer-facing communications are formalized: a “Notice of Acknowledgement” to be provided without delay once the complaint is received, and a “Notice of Final Decision” at the conclusion of the Bank’s internal process, each with prescribed content.
• The Guideline shifts from “redress and reimbursement” to “redress and remediation,” with a focus on addressing financial and non-financial harm.
• Expectations around recurring and systemic issues are expanded to include root-cause analysis, broader harm assessment and reporting, supported by a new definition of a “potential systemic issue.”
• Banks must provide the external complaints body with all relevant information about a complaint, without delay, once notified that the body has received the complaint, and FCAC expects that information provided to the body during an investigation be submitted in a timely manner.
• The Guideline adds a new Annex of required consumer-facing text and updates accessibility, training and resourcing expectations, while strengthening the language around existing annual public-reporting expectations.

Background

The FCAC’s complaint-handling guideline operationalizes the requirements in Part XII.2 of the Bank Act and the related regulations. The revised Guideline retains the same overall structure, including the three key principles of effectiveness, timeliness and accessibility, but strengthens the language underpinning those principles and expands the section on administrative processes and controls, including by adding detailed expectations for information-sharing with external complaints bodies.

Two framing changes are worth noting:

• First, the FCAC now expressly states that a Bank is responsible for ensuring it meets the requirements of the Bank Act and that its Policies and Procedures are satisfactory to the Commissioner.
• Second, the FCAC encourages other federally regulated financial entities (such as trust and loan companies and insurance companies) to review the Guideline to develop and improve their own policies and procedures, signalling that the document is intended to inform expectations beyond the banking sector.

How Does the Revised Guideline Change Complaint-Handling Timelines?

The most consequential change relates to timing. The prior Guideline referred generally to “the prescribed period.” The revised Guideline names the 56-day prescribed period for dealing with complaints throughout and, importantly, states that the FCAC expects the period will not be paused for any reason. Where circumstances beyond a Bank’s control cause the 56-day period to be exceeded, the FCAC expects the Bank to document and record the reason for the delay.

The 14-calendar-day timeframe for referring an unresolved complaint to a designated employee is retained. Banks are now also expected to give consumers the option to escalate a complaint to a designated employee before that referral timeframe has passed.

In practice, Banks will need processes to track the 56-day clock from the day a complaint is first communicated (through any channel), to surface an escalation option to consumers, and to evidence the reason for any delay that pushes a matter beyond the prescribed period.

What New Consumer Notices Must Banks Provide?

The revised Guideline formalizes two written communications, each with prescribed content.

• Notice of Acknowledgement – The FCAC expects a Bank to acknowledge receipt of each complaint, without delay, in writing and in the form of a Notice of Acknowledgement. The notice is expected to include the date the complaint was received; an overview of the Bank’s complaint-handling process, including any internal escalation process, the actions that will follow and associated timelines (including the prescribed timeline for dealing with the complaint); and how and under what circumstances the consumer can contact the external complaints body.
• Notice of Final Decision – Replacing the prior “substantive written response” concept, the Notice of Final Decision is a titled written response that must indicate it marks the conclusion of the Bank’s internal complaint-handling process. Its required content includes the date the complaint was first communicated to the Bank; the timeframe the Bank took to deal with it; a statement of facts (including relevant timelines); the Bank’s final decision and all relevant information on how it was reached (for example, financial or non-financial harm to the consumer); the method used to determine redress and remediation, where applicable; and information on the consumer’s right to escalate to the external complaints body, including how and when to do so.

From Reimbursement to Remediation

Throughout the revised Guideline, the language of “redress and reimbursement” is replaced with “redress and remediation,” shifting the emphasis toward addressing financial and non-financial harm to consumers.

A Bank’s Policies and Procedures must include a comprehensive redress policy that sets out how and when the Bank will provide redress in a timely manner, in keeping with the circumstances of the complaint, including where a recurring or systemic issue has been identified. The change aligns the Guideline’s remedies framework with a harm-based analysis and pairs directly with the expanded systemic-issue expectations discussed below.

Greater Focus on Recurring and Systemic Issues

The revised Guideline broadens expectations for identifying, remedying and reporting recurring or systemic issues. Policies and Procedures are expected to address the underlying reason for a complaint and take corrective action; track and analyze the causes of individual complaints to identify root causes common to various types of complaints; consider whether those root causes may also affect other processes, products or services; and assess whether other consumers may have suffered financial or non-financial harm.

Notably, the FCAC now defines a “potential systemic issue” as “a compliance issue that may impact multiple Consumers or have market-wide implications,” a definition that will frame how Banks scope their monitoring and reporting obligations.

Accessibility and Complaint Channels

The Guideline sharpens accessibility expectations. Complaint channels must include both voice and electronic channels, available to both current clients and non-clients, and electronic channels are expected to provide the consumer with a copy of their submitted complaint.

The consumer’s right to escalate to the external complaints body is now tied to the earlier of two dates: when the Bank’s 56-day prescribed period has elapsed, or when the consumer has been provided with a Notice of Final Decision.

Banks should review how their intake channels are designed and disclosed, and confirm that consumer-facing materials accurately describe this escalation trigger.

Information-Sharing with the External Complaints Body

The revised Guideline adds a detailed obligation regarding cooperation with the external complaints body. Once the body notifies a Bank that it has received a complaint, the Bank must, without delay, provide all relevant information about the complaint, including contracts, agreements, records of correspondence (both internal and with the consumer), transaction records, and any internal documents related to the Bank’s investigation. The FCAC further expects that any information provided during an investigation be submitted in a timely manner.

Banks should ensure their processes can assemble and transmit a complete complaint file promptly upon notification.

Governance, Training, Resourcing and Filing

Senior management oversight (and oversight by the board committee responsible for compliance with consumer provisions) is retained. The revised Guideline layers on several additional expectations:

• Filing of Policies and Procedures – A Bank seeking to incorporate, or to continue to operate as a Bank, must provide a copy of its Policies and Procedures to the FCAC within the timelines specified during the application process. When a Bank amends its Policies and Procedures, FCAC expects the amended version to be submitted as soon as the amendments are approved through the Bank’s internal governance process.
• Resources, monitoring and testing – The FCAC expects a Bank to allocate sufficient operational, technological and human resources to its complaint-handling function, and to include a process for monitoring and testing its Policies and Procedures and updating them as required.
• Training – Beyond initial and ongoing training for employees who deal with complaints, the Guideline now expects a system for monitoring the status of employee training and mechanisms to measure and test the effectiveness of that training.

Annual Public Disclosure and Reporting to the FCAC

The revised Guideline does not materially change the information Banks are expected to make public annually (or in writing on request), but it strengthens the language around FCAC’s expectation that this information be disclosed. This information includes the total number of complaints the senior designated employee handled that year, the number of resolved and closed complaints, the average time taken, the products or services to which complaints related, and a description of the nature of the complaints beyond the product or service classification.

New Annex: Required Consumer-Facing Text

The Guideline adds an Annex setting out required text for Banks to include in their online and print complaint-handling information for customers. The text describes the FCAC’s role, explains that a consumer may escalate to the external complaints body once the Bank’s 56-day period has elapsed or a final decision has been issued, and provides the FCAC’s full contact details.

The FCAC expects the required text to be presented in full and not altered, so Banks will need to update their public-facing complaint materials accordingly.

What Banks Should Do Now

With the revised Guideline taking effect on June 23, 2027, Banks have a defined window to prepare.

Practical next steps include:

• conducting a gap assessment of existing Policies and Procedures against the revised expectations;
• updating consumer communications to implement the Notice of Acknowledgement and Notice of Final Decision;
• reviewing the design and disclosure of complaint channels;
• building or refining processes to track the 56-day period and document any delays;
• strengthening systemic-issue identification and root-cause analysis; and
• confirming information-sharing protocols with the external complaints body.

Banks should begin reviewing complaint-handling policies, escalation procedures, remediation frameworks and external complaints body protocols well before the June 23, 2027 implementation date. Members of McCarthy Tétrault’s Financial Institutions Regulatory Group can assist with gap assessments, policy updates, and implementation planning.