Survey of Loan Deferrals (SLD)

Detailed information for first quarter 2020

The purpose of this survey is to collect information on borrowers' ability to make scheduled loan payments. This information will be used to ensure Financial and Wealth Accounts (FWA) credit related statistics such as the debt service ratio correctly capture the true level of obligated principal payments to provide the most accurate signal to policy-makers and the general public of the financial vulnerability of households.

Data release - TBD

• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

A deferral is an agreement between a borrower and lender, which indicates that these two parties have agreed to pause or suspend loan payments for a certain amount of time. After the agreement ends, scheduled loan payments will return to normal and the deferred payments will be added to the loan's principal and repaid throughout the remaining term. This information is necessary to ensure that credit related statistics such as the debt service ratio correctly capture the true level of obligated principal payments to provide the most accurate signal to policy-makers and the general public of the financial vulnerability of households.

As Canada's regulator for financial institutions, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) collected detailed data on loan deferrals from the institutions under its regulatory purview via an ad-hoc collection process (the OSFI Deferral Portfolio Information Sheet). Statistics Canada would like to obtain similar estimates to those submitted to OSFI for reference periods better aligned with our products. This information is to be collected for the first time by Statistics Canada in order to ensure that National Accounts estimates accurately measure the impact of the pandemic on credit flows in the Canadian economy.

Subjects

• Household assets, debts and wealth
• Income, pensions, spending and wealth

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population is all federally regulated chartered banks.

Instrument design

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

This methodology does not apply.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

These data will be collected via the same process as other quarterly banking schedules (MS,PS,etc) currently being submitted by chartered banks.

These data will be combined with the other regulatory returns currently provided by chartered banks to the Financial and Wealth Accounts in order to have a full and detailed portrait of household credit vulnerability during the COVID19 pandemic period.

Error detection

This methodology does not apply.

Imputation

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Estimation

This methodology does not apply.

Quality evaluation

This methodology does not apply.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology type does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

The voluntary nature of the survey means there may be units missing from the target population, the aggregated estimates will be compared with other FWA input data sources to ensure full coverage. As an input to the Macroeconomic Accounts the reliability of the data will be derived by sector analyst experts.