British Columbia Financial Services Authority CEO outlines a coherence over uniformity approach to regulatory harmonization

The British Columbia Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) CEO Tolga Yalkin delivered remarks at the 2025 Northwind event in Cambridge setting out a practical framework for regulatory alignment that prioritises coherent outcomes across jurisdictions rather than uniform rulemaking. The speech positioned harmonization as a spectrum of four approaches with increasing integration: coordination, convergence, mutual recognition and standardization. It argued that the appropriate model depends on the issue and context, highlighting examples including the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators’ Annual Statement on Market Conduct, discussions within the Canadian Insurance Services Regulatory Organizations on reciprocal recognition of adjuster licences, the joint Fair Treatment of Customers guidance developed by CCIR and CISRO, and CCIR-led work on common definitions and baseline expectations for cyber incident reporting. Yalkin also identified decision factors for selecting the level of harmonization, including the nature of the issue, potential efficiency gains, shared risk views, differences in current practice, and institutional readiness and trust, alongside execution conditions such as clear purpose, scoped objectives, stakeholder engagement, transparency, implementation planning, respect for jurisdictional mandates and built-in review mechanisms.