Budget 2025 Announces Measures to Combat Financial Crime

In Budget 2025, the Government of Canada announced its intentions to implement legislative changes in its continued efforts to combat financial crime. Key aspects of these measures are summarized below.

Legislative Amendments

The following legislative amendments are proposed:

• Amend the Bank Act to require banks to:
  • have policies and procedures to detect and prevent consumer-targeted fraud and to mitigate its impacts;
  • report data on fraud to the Commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada which would be aggregated in an annual report from the Commissioner to the Minister; and
  • obtain express consent of consumers to enable or disable certain account features, to permit consumers to disable certain account features, and to allow consumers to adjust maximum transaction amounts, and make related amendments.
• Create a new Act to establish a Financial Crimes Agency, which would be Canada's lead enforcement agency against financial crime.
• Amend the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA) to:
  • restrict the acceptance of (i) cash deposits from one person into the account of another person, and (ii) a cash payment, donation, or deposit of $10,000 or more;
  • clarify public to private information sharing provisions to help better detect and deter money laundering and support the recently created Integrated Money Laundering Intelligence Partnership between banks and law enforcement, with related amendments to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act;
  • strengthen anti-money laundering supervision, compliance, enforcement, and information sharing, including by (i) better identifying the businesses and professionals that have those obligations, (ii) increasing penalties for non-compliance, and (iii) introducing a new compliance agreement framework;
  • make the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) a member of the Financial Institutions Supervisory Committee (FISC) and enable FINTRAC and current FISC members to exchange regulatory and supervisory information relevant to FISC’s mandate, with related amendments to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act; and
  • make certain technical amendments to the PCMLTA and applicable regulations.

Looking Forward

Goodmans Financial Services Regulatory Group will continue to follow the implementation of these measures and provide updates accordingly.

For further information concerning the measures announced in Budget 2025, and what they might mean from a compliance perspective, please contact any member of our Financial Services Regulatory Group.