For our capital markets to remain innovative and competitive, today’s regulatory approaches need to reflect business realities of market participants.
The CSA Collaboratory brings together CSA members, market participants, investor advocates, academics and technology providers to explore emerging technologies, business models and market developments that may affect Canadian capital markets. Through engagement, research, information-gathering and other activities, the Collaboratory helps the CSA build its understanding of innovation and identify issues that may require further regulatory consideration or testing.
Participating in the CSA Collaboratory can potentially:
- Reduce barriers to market entry
- Shorten the time to market
- Improve outcomes for investors
- Improve access to capital
Current Themes
Each theme is an area we are exploring through a dedicated project. Below is the status of these projects:
| Data Portability in the investment market | Tokenization of financial products |
|---|---|
| Status: Findings Report published September 8, 2026 | Status: Completed stakeholder engagement in Summer 2026 and preparing Phase 1 Findings Report |
| About: How data portability frameworks and electronic know-your-client (e-KYC) solutions may affect securities regulation, investor protection and market efficiency. | About: How tokenized financial products intersect with Canadian securities laws. Activities include stakeholder engagement, issue-mapping, research and consideration of potential future testing activities. |
| Learn more about Data Portability and e-KYC | Learn more about Tokenization |
How the Collaboratory Works
Depending on the theme being explored, Collaboratory activities may include:
- Discussion papers and subject matter expert consultations
- Workshops, roundtables and bilateral discussions
- Research and issue-mapping exercises
- Testing environments, where appropriate, within a controlled and regulatory-flexible framework guided by the CSA
- Sharing observations and insights to support regulatory learning
Insights gathered by the CSA Collaboratory can contribute to regulatory policy development and provide market participants with insights for use in their own decisions.
Testing Environments
Testing in the CSA Collaboratory uses selected real-world scenarios to generate evidence for broader regulatory learning, recommendations or future policy work. The testing environment is a controlled and regulatory-flexible framework that may include:
- Granting temporary exemptions, subject to parameters, from specific securities provisions, enabling market participants to test innovative ideas that might not be permitted under the current regulatory framework and evaluate the viability and impact of these innovations in a controlled setting
- Opportunities to collaborate with other testing participants
- Direct feedback from regulators
- Avenues to provide real-time feedback to the CSA and contribute to policy-making
While no testing is currently underway, the CSA continues to assess each theme for opportunities and share the possibility so that participants understand how testing would work when a test is launched. Because the Collaboratory is run in groups (cohorts), participation in testing is subject to meeting eligibility criteria for the specific test.
How to Participate in the Collaboratory
The CSA periodically launches projects focused on specific themes or areas of interest. Opportunities to participate may vary depending on the theme and may include responding to surveys, participating in discussions or roundtables, contributing research, sharing practical experience and insights or participating in testing environments.
Participating in Collaboratory can help:
- Share practical market insights with regulators
- Contribute to regulatory learning on emerging issues
- Identify opportunities, challenges and barriers affecting innovation
- Inform future regulatory consideration
- Build a better understanding of evolving market developments
Leveraging Regional Opportunities to Develop Canadian Solutions
Collaboratory projects may involve all CSA members or only those participating in a specific project, depending on the subject matter, participating organizations and objectives. This flexibility lets the CSA run concurrent projects on different themes and, where a project involves matters relevant to other regulatory organizations in Canada, enables their engagement so their perspectives are appropriately considered.
Insights from each theme will help the CSA with its efforts to modernize the Canadian capital markets regulatory environment.