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The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) is the federal regulator that supervises federally regulated banks and lenders for compliance with consumer-protection and disclosure rules, including mortgage cost-of-borrowing disclosure.
FCAC oversees how federally regulated financial institutions treat their customers — disclosure, complaint handling, and fair-dealing practices — rather than whether those institutions are financially sound. That soundness side of the equation belongs to OSFI; the two regulators work the same institutions from different angles.
FCAC also publishes a large library of plain-language consumer guides — on qualifying for a mortgage, cost of borrowing disclosure, and default insurance — that brokers routinely point clients toward. It's important to keep the boundary clear: FCAC does not license or regulate mortgage brokerages, brokers, or agents directly.
Division of labour: OSFI regulates the safety and soundness of federally regulated lenders; FCAC regulates how those same lenders treat their consumers.
Mortgage brokering is provincial: FCAC has no role in licensing mortgage brokerages or agents — that responsibility sits with FSRA, BCFSA, RECA, and AMF.
Public education: FCAC's consumer guides on preapproval, cost of borrowing, and mortgage default insurance are widely used reference material in the brokering industry.
Complaint handling: FCAC handles market-conduct complaints against federally regulated banks once a consumer has exhausted the bank's own internal complaint process.
Definitions reflect Canadian federal and provincial rules as of the “Updated” date above. Not advice for any specific file.
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