PIAC Comments on OBSI External Review – 2026

Ottawa - 24 April 2026 - The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) provided its comments to the OBSI (Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments) Independent External Review. PIAC’s experience and research suggests that the OBSI is not sufficiently well known in Canada, and significant effort is still required to increase public awareness.

Since November 1, 2024, OBSI has become Canada’s single external complaints body (ECB) for federally regulated banks. This should have resulted in a more streamlined and easier independent recourse for banking consumers to escalate their complaints as necessary. However, our experience indicates that consumer awareness and access to OBSI are still considerably behind. We need easily available public evidence that shows whether and how consumer awareness and access to OBSI have changed, particularly, after it became the single ECB.

PIAC’s main concerns and comments are as follows:

• More efforts and clarity are needed on measures being taken to improve consumer awareness of the OBSI.
• OBSI’s lack of binding authority is a major concern that should be addressed on an expedited basis.
• The current limit for OBSI’s recommendation to a single complaint needs to be reviewed to ensure that the applicable limit is appropriate for different complaints and issues and it is able to fairly resolve issues for banking and/or investment customers.
• Need more transparency regarding OBSI’s engagement efforts as well as the results and action steps issued in these engagements.
• OBSI needs to reconsider how it is engaging with consumer advocacy and community groups, and also consider what kind of support can be offered- whether it is funding, guidance, reasonable time frames and/or other resources that might be required by these groups to be able to actively participate.

For more details, see here: PIAC Commentary, OBSI 2026 External Review Public Consultation.