OSFI federally regulated lender data (Canada, restricted access)

Restricted supervisory data: not exercised here

OSFI federally regulated lender data is confidential supervisory data. It is not for sale and not publicly downloadable: it carries no provenance badge because there is no access path we can run here. Researchers reach it only through an approved restricted-data arrangement (in practice through the Bank of Canada), inside a secure environment, with output subject to disclosure review. The page documents what the collection is and the gotchas; treat it as unverified. This is the honest grade under the institute’s Verified discipline.

OSFI federally regulated lender data is the contract-level mortgage reporting that federally regulated Canadian lenders submit to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), the prudential supervisor of federal banks and insurers. Each record carries lender identity, loan size, funding date, monthly payment, outstanding balance, mortgage rate, amortization, loan-to-value (LTV), and total debt-service ratio. It is a near-complete view of new federally regulated mortgage lending, used for studies of mortgage pricing and competition. A paper we distill uses it: Allen & Li use the OSFI contract-level mortgage data (lender identity, loan size, rate, amortization, LTV, debt-service ratio) together with Canadian credit-bureau records to study dynamic competition in negotiated mortgage pricing.

• Cost: not for sale. Restricted-access confidential supervisory data.
• Collector: OSFI; research access in practice through the Bank of Canada.
• Coverage: mortgages originated by federally regulated lenders; provincially regulated lenders and credit unions are outside the federal perimeter.

Access (restricted)

• No public download. The contract-level microdata is confidential and is not posted.
• Through an approved arrangement, in practice via the Bank of Canada. Access is limited to researchers granted entry to the restricted data, worked inside a secure environment with output subject to disclosure review.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

These are the failure modes to expect; they are documented, not verified here.

• Federally regulated only, so it is not all mortgages. Provincially regulated lenders, credit unions, and some private lenders are outside the OSFI perimeter; the data is the federal slice, not the whole Canadian mortgage market. Do not generalize to all lenders.
• New originations, not the full stock. The reporting is oriented to newly funded mortgages and their terms; it is not a complete outstanding-stock panel. Match the new-origination scope to your question.
• Debt-service and LTV are reported metrics. TDS/GDS ratios and LTV follow the reporting and underwriting definitions, which interact with regulatory guidelines (for example the B-20 stress-test rules) that changed over the period; a ratio is not a fixed concept across years. Read the definition for your window.
• Lender identity needs linking. Joining to credit-bureau records and to house-price or demographic data requires borrower- and lender-level crosswalks under pseudonyms; plan links inside one secure delivery.
• Regulatory regime breaks. Mortgage-insurance rules and qualifying-rate guidelines shifted over the sample; loan terms respond to policy, not only to market conditions. Control for the regulatory regime.
• Output is disclosure-reviewed and cannot be redistributed. Results leave the secure environment only after review, and the microdata itself cannot be shared.

Citation

Cite the source and access route, e.g.: OSFI federally regulated lender mortgage data (Canada), confidential; accessed via the Bank of Canada under restricted-data arrangement, YYYY-MM-DD. State the origination window, the LTV/debt-service definitions, and the regulatory regime in force.