Big Six agree on third-party risk management compliance framework

Canada’s Big Six banks are working with CanDeal Group to pilot a common framework for third-party risk management compliance in the first half of 2026, CanDeal announced last week.

The framework, which will be piloted in the first half of the year, has been developed by and for the financial services industry. It is a shared data and control layer for third-party risk information across participating banks.

Instead of each bank sending its own due diligence questionnaires and collecting similar information separately from shared suppliers, the framework standardizes the questions so banks can draw on the same answers to make their own decisions. A supplier would make one submission instead of repeating the same exercise five more times, CanDeal said in an email.

In the future, CanDeal will use AI and machine learning to classify documents and spot changes when suppliers update certifications, incident disclosures and privacy policies. It will make key details available in a common format and highlight the most relevant information for each bank’s decision makers in to save time on manual review, according to CanDeal.

“The regulatory requirements are complex, and the due diligence process can be demanding,” Jay Horner, co-founder, president and CEO of CanDeal, said in the release. “It’s about making the process more efficient, inclusive, and beneficial for everyone.”

CanDeal will initially focus on banking operation technology providers like cloud, data and infrastructure providers.

CanDeal is an electronic marketplace and data service provider for Canadian dollar debt securities and derivatives. It introduced electronic Canadian dollar interest rate swap trading in 2013 and an online fixed-income and derivatives market data hub for regulators and market participants in 2019.

Jonathan Got

Jonathan Got is a reporter with Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. Reach him at jonathan@newcom.ca.