Roles and Responsibilities of the Executive Director and Managing Director

Publication date: June 17, 2024

This supervisory policy outlines the roles of the Executive Director of Payments, Supervision and Oversight and the Managing Director of Supervision. It also describes their responsibilities related to the Bank of Canada’s retail payments supervision mandate.

Introduction

The Bank of Canada is responsible for supervisory activities under the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) and the Retail Payment Activities Regulations (RPAR), including registration, risk monitoring and enforcement. The RPAA grants certain authorities to the Bank of Canada and grants other authorities to the Governor of the Bank of Canada. The Governor may delegate to an officer of the Bank any of the Governor’s powers, duties or functions under the RPAA. The Bank and the Governor have allocated certain roles and responsibilities for retail payments supervision to the Executive Director of Payments, Supervision and Oversight and the Managing Director of Supervision. This policy outlines the main roles and responsibilities between the two positions and explains why a delineation is necessary.

Executive Director

Reporting directly to the Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank, the Executive Director:

• is responsible overall for the supervision of retail payment service providers (PSPs) and the oversight of financial market infrastructures (FMIs)
• oversees the banking and payments services provided by the Bank
• serves as an independent reviewer of certain decisions issued by Bank staff in retail payments supervision (RPS)

The Executive Director has been delegated the responsibility of independent reviewer by the Governor. Notice of this delegation was published in the Canada Gazette on June 15, 2024. The Executive Director carries out this responsibility within the Governor’s review function, which is deliberately and entirely separate from RPS activities. The Governor’s review function employs staff who are independent from RPS supervisory activities and who help to facilitate the review and issue a Governor’s decision.

To maintain independence throughout the Governor’s review process, the Executive Director does not participate in the supervisory activities of RPS, such as registration, risk monitoring and enforcement. These supervisory activities are overseen by the Managing Director to ensure the adjudicative function of the Governor’s review remains separate from the supervisory activities. This separation ensures that the Executive Director can issue independent and impartial Governor’s decisions.

Managing Director

Reporting directly to the Executive Director, the Managing Director:

• is responsible for the strategic direction and management of the Supervision Department
• is the head of RPS, overseeing its staff, resources, annual work plans, goals and risks
• oversees the RPS activities, such as registration, risk monitoring and enforcement
• provides strategic advice and recommendations for the Supervision Department.

The Managing Director remains independent from the Executive Director when conducting any supervisory activity that could lead to a Governor’s review. Because of this, the Managing Director oversees all registration and enforcement actions initiated by Bank staff in RPS and cannot involve or discuss those matters with the Executive Director.

The Managing Director is also responsible for issuing compliance orders under the RPAA, which allow the Bank to intervene if a PSP is committing or is about to commit an act that could have a significant adverse impact on a specified individual or entity (i.e., an end user, a PSP, or a clearing house of a clearing and settlement system that is overseen by the Bank under the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act). The Governor delegated this responsibility to the Managing Director in a notice of delegation published in the Canada Gazette on June 15, 2024.

Separating the Governor’s review function and retail payments supervision activities

The Bank separates the Governor's review function, led by the Executive Director, and the broader supervision functions within the rest of RPS, led by the Managing Director. The required separation is managed internally by:

• using separate staff
• keeping information pertaining to the Governor’s review function separate from other RPS document databases
• restricting communications about supervisory matters between staff in the Governor’s review function and staff involved in RPS supervisory activities.

Overall, this separation ensures that the different functions overseen by the Managing Director and the Executive Director are carried out independently.