Tru Cooperative Bank CEO says proportionate rules are key to boosting banking competition in Canada
Canada’s newest federal credit union is calling on Ottawa to overhaul its merger and regulatory framework, warning that without meaningful reform, smaller institutions cannot build national scale and Canadians will be left with a banking market dominated by a handful of major lenders.
In an opinion piece published in The Hill Times, Launi Skinner, CEO of Tru Cooperative Bank in Langley, British Columbia, outlined three priorities for the federal government:
- clearer merger regulations and appropriate tax treatment
- coordinated review processes across federal agencies
- capital requirements calibrated to an institution’s actual size and risk profile
“For far too long, Canadians have had limited choice when it comes to national banking options,” Skinner wrote.
Tru Cooperative Bank, formerly First West Credit Union, became federally regulated in April and currently serves approximately 290,000 members with approximately $21 billion in total assets and assets under administration.
In September, it announced a proposed merger with Ontario’s Libro Credit Union that would create an organization serving approximately 470,000 members with nearly $33 billion in combined assets, subject to member and regulatory approvals.
The case for a stronger middle tier
Canada’s national residential mortgage market carries more than $2.4 trillion in outstanding debt, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data for December 2025, yet most credit unions remain regionally concentrated.
“Canada needs more institutions between those two ends of the market,” Skinner wrote — cooperatives with national capabilities and the local accountability that distinguishes them from publicly traded banks.
The appetite to fill that gap is already visible at the lender level. At MortgageFest Canada 2026, Bekim Merdita, head of sales and marketing at QuestBank, formerly Community Trust, described the institution’s positioning.
“Community Trust, 50-year-old trust company. And really, at the end of last year, we got our banking licence — a Schedule 1 bank — and rebranded ourselves to Quest Bank. It gives us the ability to not just do mortgage products, but other products as well that serve the consumer and really start building a financial ecosystem for our consumer.”
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has signalled a less conservative approach to approving new banking entrants, and the regulator’s updated approvals framework launched in June aims to widen market access further.
For brokers navigating a more complex lender roster, regulatory inconsistency is already a top frustration. Grant Armstrong, chief growth officer of WealthOne Bank of Canada, told MortgageFest Canada 2026.
"The biggest pain points that we’re hearing from brokers is the ever-changing policies, the ever-changing rules, the ever-changing processes that lenders are doing," he said.
"Every single week a lender has changed how you submit a deal, what forms you need, what documents — and brokers are struggling to keep up."
What Ottawa needs to do
Skinner argued that mergers involving federal credit unions — requiring review by OSFI, the Competition Bureau, and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), alongside the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) and the Department of Finance — should not generate duplicative information requests or conflicting regulatory interpretations.
“No responsible cooperative leader is asking for weaker consumer protection or lower standards of safety and soundness,” she wrote.
“But equivalent standards do not always require identical requirements.”
She also called for proportionate capital rules, arguing requirements designed around systemically important banks divert management capacity away from cybersecurity, digital banking, and small-business lending at mid-sized cooperatives.
Federally regulated credit unions now hold approximately $47 billion of the $330 billion in total assets across Canadian credit unions nationally, according to the Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA).
The Tru–Libro combination, if approved, would represent the sector’s most substantial attempt yet to fill the gap Skinner has identified, and the clearest test of whether Ottawa’s updated framework can deliver.
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