There is a specific kind of dread in a phone that keeps ringing from a number you recognise. Most Canadians in that position eventually search for their rights, and what comes back is an article about collection agencies: licensing, the provincial registrar, the rules about how often an agency may call. Useful, and often beside the point, because a very large share of collection calls in this country come from the lender itself. The credit card is the bank's. The line of credit is the bank's. Nobody sold the file to anybody.
When the bank is collecting its own consumer debt, it is bound by federal rules under the Bank Act. Those rules are shorter, more specific and in several places tighter than people expect, and they are almost entirely absent from Canadian consumer writing. They sit in two places: one section of the Bank Act, and an eleven item schedule to a regulation. We read both and set them out below.
The short answer
Section 627.37 of the Bank Act prohibits an institution, in its dealings with a natural person who owes it a debt under a credit agreement entered into other than for business purposes, from communicating with that person, their family or household, a relative, neighbour, friend or acquaintance, or their employer, by any means, in a manner, or with a frequency that constitutes harassment. It names three examples: threatening, profane, intimidating or coercive language, undue pressure, and making public or threatening to make public the person's failure to pay.
Section 627.37 also requires compliance with prescribed debt collection practices. Those are set out in the schedule to the Financial Consumer Protection Framework Regulations, SOR/2021-181. There are eleven of them, and they cover calling hours, who else may be contacted, what your employer may be told, how to force written only contact, and which charges may never be added to what you owe.
Institution has a defined meaning here. For this Part of the Bank Act it means a bank or an authorized foreign bank. A third party collection agency and a provincially regulated credit union are governed by provincial law instead.
First, work out which rulebook you are in
This is the step that saves people from quoting the wrong law at the wrong company, which never goes well.
| Who is calling | Which rules apply | Where you complain |
|---|---|---|
| The bank that lent you the money, collecting its own consumer credit debt | Bank Act s. 627.37 and the eleven prescribed practices in the schedule to SOR/2021-181 | The bank's internal complaints process, then the external complaints body, with the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada supervising compliance |
| A third party collection agency, whether the debt was assigned or sold | Your province's collection agency legislation | Your provincial consumer protection office or registrar |
| A provincially regulated credit union | Your province's legislation, plus your membership agreement | Your provincial regulator and the credit union's own process |
| The Canada Revenue Agency for a tax debt | Federal tax collection powers, which are a different animal entirely | Covered separately in our guide to a frozen bank account and CRA collection |
One more scoping point that matters. Section 627.37 is about a debt under a credit agreement entered into other than for business purposes. The Bank Act defines credit agreement for this Part as including an agreement for a line of credit, a credit card or any other kind of loan repayable in Canada. So a personal credit card, a personal line of credit, a personal loan and a mortgage are the natural home of these rules. A business loan is not.
The harassment rule, in the statute's own words
Section 627.37(a) of the Bank Act provides that in its dealings with a natural person who owes it a debt under a credit agreement entered into other than for business purposes, an institution:
"shall not communicate or attempt to communicate with the person, any member of the person's family or household, any relative, neighbour, friend or acquaintance of the person or the person's employer by any means that constitutes harassment, in a manner that constitutes harassment or with a frequency that constitutes harassment, including by (i) using threatening, profane, intimidating or coercive language, (ii) using undue pressure, or (iii) making public, or threatening to make public, the person's failure to pay".
Two features of that drafting are worth pointing out, because they are what make it useful in a complaint.
It covers means, manner and frequency separately. A collector can be perfectly polite and still breach this if the frequency is the problem. You do not have to prove anyone was rude.
It protects other people, not only you. Your parent, your roommate, your neighbour and your employer are all named in the prohibition. If the bank is leaning on them, that is a breach with respect to them as well.
Paragraph (b) then requires the institution to comply with any other prescribed debt collection practices. That is the hook that pulls in the eleven items below.
The eleven prescribed practices
Section 13 of the Financial Consumer Protection Framework Regulations states that for the purposes of paragraph 627.37(b) of the Act, the debt collection practices set out in the schedule are prescribed debt collection practices. Here is the whole schedule, summarised item by item.
| Item | What the bank must or must not do |
|---|---|
| 1 | When it contacts you to collect, it must tell you the details of the debt, such as the amount owed and the type of debt, and identify the person attempting to collect on its behalf, or give a unique identifier for them, along with that person's relationship with the institution. |
| 2 | Except solely to obtain your address or telephone number, it may not contact any member of your family or household, or any relative, neighbour, friend or acquaintance, unless that person guaranteed the debt and is being contacted about the guarantee, or you gave express consent. Oral consent must be confirmed to you in writing, on paper or electronically. |
| 3 | Unless you authorize otherwise in writing, it may contact your employer solely to confirm that you are employed, the nature of your employment, your business title and your business address. |
| 4 | It may not contact you at your place of employment unless it does not have your home address or home telephone number, its attempts to reach you at your home number have failed, or it has your written authorization. |
| 5 | Except with your written consent, it may not contact you or any of the people in item 2, or your employer or guarantor, on a Sunday except between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. local time for the person being contacted, on any other holiday, or on any other day except between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. local time for the person being contacted. Unless the person gave a cellular number as a contact number, it also may not knowingly use a means of communication that makes the person pay the charges or costs of the communication. |
| 6 | Once it has communicated with you about the debt, it must stop contacting you by other means if you make a written request by registered mail to communicate only in writing and give an address; it must go through your legal advisor only if you make a written request and provide that advisor's telephone number and address; and it may not contact you without your consent if you notify it by registered mail that the debt is in dispute and that you intend to take the matter before a dispute resolution body, or that you are prepared for it to take the matter to court. |
| 7 | It may not misrepresent the purpose of a communication about collecting the debt, and may not give any false or misleading information, directly or indirectly, by implication or otherwise, in the course of that communication. |
| 8 | Despite any agreement to the contrary, charges it makes or incurs in collecting the debt, other than the charges referred to in section 627.3 of the Act, are not part of the amount you owe and may not be recovered from you. |
| 9 | It may not collect or attempt to collect payment of the debt from any person who is not liable for it. |
| 10 | It may not directly or indirectly threaten, or state an intention to proceed with, any legal action if it does not actually intend to do so. |
| 11 | It may not use any document that falsely purports to originate from any court, inside or outside Canada, to attempt to collect the debt. |
Calling hours, spelled out
Item 5 is the one most people want and almost nobody can quote. The window is set by the local time of the person being contacted, not the local time of the call centre, which matters in a country with six time zones.
| Day | When contact is permitted without your written consent |
|---|---|
| Sunday | 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time for the person being contacted |
| Any other holiday | Not at all |
| Any other day | 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. local time for the person being contacted |
The second half of item 5 is a smaller point with a sharp edge. Unless you or the other person gave a cellular telephone number as a contact number, the institution may not knowingly communicate, or attempt to communicate, for the purpose of collecting, negotiating or demanding payment, by a means that makes the charges or costs of that communication payable by the person being contacted. In plain terms: it must not make you pay for the privilege of being collected from.
Calling everyone you know is not allowed
Item 2 draws a hard line, and it is worth reading twice because it is much narrower than the practice people report.
Contacting your family, household, relatives, neighbours, friends or acquaintances is permitted for the sole purpose of obtaining your address or telephone number. That is the entire permission. It is not permission to describe the debt, to leave a message about a debt, to ask that person to pass on a payment demand, or to call the same person repeatedly.
The two exceptions are narrow. The person guaranteed the debt and is being contacted about that guarantee. Or you gave express consent, and if you gave it orally the institution must confirm that consent to you in writing.
Item 9 sits alongside this and is blunt: an institution may not collect or attempt to collect payment in respect of a debt from any person who is not liable for the debt. Adult children being pressed about a parent's balance, spouses who never signed, authorized users who are not cardholders. If the person is not liable, they are not a collection target.
What your employer may be told
Two separate items do two separate jobs here, and mixing them up is easy.
Item 3 limits what they may ask your employer
Unless you authorize otherwise in writing, contacting your employer is permitted solely to confirm that you are employed, the nature of your employment, your business title and your business address. There is nothing in that list about your salary, your schedule, or the existence of a debt.
Item 4 limits whether they may call you at work at all
An institution may not contact you at your place of employment unless one of three things is true: it does not have your home address or home telephone number, its attempts to contact you at your home number have failed, or it has your written authorization. Giving the bank a home number that works is therefore not just polite, it removes the condition that lets them call you at work.
How to make the phone calls stop
Item 6 is the most actionable line in the whole schedule, and it has a formality requirement that people miss: registered mail. A phone request or an email does not trigger it. You have three distinct options.
Option one: written contact only
Make a written request by registered mail asking the institution to communicate with you only in writing about the collection of this debt, and provide an address at which you may be contacted. After that it may not communicate with you by any means other than in writing in that regard.
Option two: through your legal advisor only
Make a written request that it communicate with you only through your legal advisor, and provide a telephone number and an address for that advisor. This one does not require registered mail in the wording of the item, but sending it that way costs a few dollars and gives you proof of delivery, which is the entire point of the exercise.
Option three: notify that the debt is in dispute
Notify the institution by registered mail that the debt is in dispute and that you intend to take the matter before a dispute resolution body, or that you are prepared for the institution to take the matter to court. After that it may not communicate with you again in the course of that collection without your consent.
Be honest with yourself about option three. It stops the calls, and it does not make the debt go away or stop a lawsuit. Saying you are prepared for the matter to go to court is a real statement. Use it when the debt genuinely is disputed or when you are ready to deal with the matter formally, not as a way to buy quiet. If you want the debt itself dealt with, look at the debt relief options available in Canada or speak to a licensed insolvency trustee, where the first consultation is normally free.
The charges they cannot add to your balance
Item 8 is the one with money in it, and it starts with four words that matter: despite any agreement to the contrary. Charges the institution makes or incurs in collecting the debt, other than charges referred to in section 627.3 of the Act, are not considered part of the amount owing and may not be recovered from you.
Section 627.3 is short and closed. Where a natural person fails to make a payment when due under a non business credit agreement, or fails to comply with another obligation in the agreement, an institution may impose, in addition to interest, other charges for the sole purpose of recovering the costs reasonably incurred:
- for legal services retained to collect or attempt to collect the payment;
- in realizing on any security interest taken under the credit agreement, or in protecting such a security interest, including the cost of legal services retained for that purpose;
- in processing a cheque or other instrument used to make a payment under the loan that was dishonoured; or
- for any prescribed purpose.
Everything else the collection effort costs the institution stays with the institution. Internal collection department costs, letters, calls, administrative fees dressed up under some other name. If you see a charge on a statement that does not fit one of those four categories, that is a question worth putting to the bank in writing.
The dishonoured payment category connects to a separate 2026 change worth knowing: the federal cap on non sufficient funds charges. We cover the current rule, and the two exceptions written into it, in the guide to the ten dollar NSF fee cap in Canada.
What these rules do not do
Being clear about the ceiling is as useful as knowing the rules.
They do not erase the debt
A breach of the schedule is a compliance failure. It is not a defence to the debt and it does not reduce the balance. Those are separate tracks and both may be running at once.
They do not stop a lawsuit, a judgment or a garnishment
A creditor with a judgment has court based remedies that have nothing to do with phone calls. What income and what accounts a judgment can actually reach is covered in bank account garnishment and protected income and in how wage garnishment works in Canada.
They do not touch the right of offset
Your bank can move money between accounts you hold with it to pay a debt you owe it, without a court and without warning. That is a contractual power, not a collection practice, and it is why banking where you borrow carries a specific risk. The mechanism is explained in the guide to the right of offset in Canada.
They do not bind a third party agency or a provincial credit union
If the file has been assigned or sold, you are in provincial territory. Start with your rights on collection calls in Canada and the collection agency rules instead.
The complaint path, with its deadlines
1. Write down what happened, while it is fresh
Date, time, the number that called, the name or identifier the caller gave, what was said, and who else was contacted. Item 1 of the schedule requires the institution to identify the person collecting on its behalf or give a unique identifier for them, so asking for that on the call is both reasonable and useful. A dated log is what turns a feeling into a complaint.
2. Complain to the bank in writing, and say which rule
Every institution must establish complaint handling procedures satisfactory to the Commissioner under section 627.43(1) of the Bank Act, designate people to run them, and give you a written acknowledgment of the date it received your complaint. Section 627.65 requires it to disclose those procedures, the name and contact details of the external complaints body, and the mailing address, website address and telephone number of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. Naming the specific item of the schedule moves a complaint faster than describing a feeling.
3. Know the clock: 56 days
Section 14 of the Financial Consumer Protection Framework Regulations sets the prescribed period for dealing with a complaint at 56 days after the day on which the complaint is received. Diarise that date when you send it.
4. Escalate to the external complaints body
On 1 November 2024 the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments assumed its responsibilities as Canada's single external complaints body for federally regulated banks, replacing a model in which banks could choose between two providers. All federally regulated banks must now be members of it. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada describes an external complaints body as an organization independent from banks that provides a free and impartial review of consumer complaints about banking services and products. Your bank must give you its name and contact details under section 627.65.
5. Tell the regulator separately
The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada supervises whether federally regulated institutions comply with these obligations. It does not get individual redress for you, which is what the external complaints body is for, but a compliance report is how a pattern of behaviour becomes visible. Doing both is normal and neither blocks the other.
Do not bank where you borrow, at least not for the money you live on
Nothing on this page constrains the right of offset, and that is the risk people find out about the hard way: a bank can move money out of your chequing account to cover a card balance at the same institution, without a court and without notice. The defence is boring and it works. Keep the income you actually live on at an institution you owe nothing to, and keep it separate from everything else, so a protected income argument is one statement rather than a tracing exercise. That only works if the extra account is free. KOHO is a Canadian no fee prepaid Mastercard account that takes direct deposit and e-Transfer and notifies you on every transaction, so you also see a problem the day it starts. Be clear about what it does not do: it is not a shield, a creditor with a judgment can serve a garnishment on any institution it can identify, and if you use a feature at any provider that lends you money then you owe that provider money too. Check the current plan terms and fees on the provider's own page before you sign up.
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The plain English version of the rules banks would rather you skimmed: what they can take, what they must tell you, the fee caps that came into force in 2026, and the exact complaint path with the deadlines that apply. One file, no fluff.
Common questions
The federal rules do not set a number, which is different from several provincial collection agency regimes that do. What section 627.37(a) of the Bank Act does instead is prohibit communicating with a frequency that constitutes harassment, as a standalone ground alongside means and manner. That is more flexible and less certain than a hard cap. In practice it means your call log is the evidence, so keep one with dates and times.
Item 2 of the schedule permits contacting a member of your family or household, or a relative, neighbour, friend or acquaintance, for the sole purpose of obtaining your address or telephone number. Discussing the debt with them is outside that purpose. The exceptions are a person who guaranteed the debt and is being contacted about the guarantee, or a person you gave express consent to be contacted, with oral consent needing written confirmation from the institution. Section 627.37(a) separately prohibits making public, or threatening to make public, your failure to pay.
Item 8 of the schedule says that despite any agreement to the contrary, charges made or incurred in collecting the debt, other than charges referred to in section 627.3 of the Act, are not part of the amount owing and may not be recovered from you. Section 627.3 allows only reasonably incurred costs for legal services retained to collect, costs of realizing on or protecting a security interest, the cost of processing a dishonoured cheque or instrument, and any prescribed purpose. A per call or per letter administrative fee does not appear in that list, so it is worth querying in writing.
Saying it is allowed if it is true. Item 10 prohibits directly or indirectly threatening, or stating an intention to proceed with, any legal action if the institution does not actually intend to do so. Item 7 separately prohibits giving false or misleading information in the course of a collection communication, directly or indirectly, by implication or otherwise. Item 11 prohibits using any document that falsely purports to originate from a court. If you receive something that looks like a court document, check it against the court's own registry before you react to it.
No, and the Bank Act addresses this directly. Section 627.43(2) prohibits an institution from using any misleading term with respect to its complaint procedures or its designated officers or employees, including any term suggesting that they are independent of the institution, and it names the term ombudsman as an example. An internal escalation office is part of the bank. The independent step is the external complaints body, and since 1 November 2024 that is a single designated body for all banks.
Item 9 is direct: an institution may not collect or attempt to collect payment in respect of a debt from any person who is not liable for the debt. Say so in writing, keep a copy, and use option three in the section above by notifying the institution by registered mail that the debt is in dispute. If the debt appears on your credit file as well, that is a separate correction process with the credit bureaus, and if you suspect the account was opened fraudulently, treat it as a fraud file rather than a collection file.
Section 627.37 applies to a natural person who owes an institution a debt under a credit agreement entered into other than for business purposes, and the Bank Act's definition of credit agreement for this Part includes any kind of loan repayable in Canada. A personal residential mortgage from a bank fits that description. Enforcement of the security itself, meaning power of sale or foreclosure, runs on separate provincial law and separate timelines, and section 627.3 expressly allows the reasonably incurred costs of realizing on or protecting a security interest to be charged. Mortgage arrears are a situation to get advice on early rather than late.
Related guides
- Collection calls in Canada: your rights when an agency is calling
- What a collection agency can and cannot do
- Can your bank take money from your account to pay a debt? The right of offset
- A creditor garnished your bank account: what money in there is actually protected
- Wage garnishment in Canada: how it works and how to stop it
- Why is my bank account frozen in Canada, and how do I get access back?
- NSF fees in Canada are capped at ten dollars: the 2026 rules
- How to dispute a credit card charge in Canada
- Debt relief options in Canada, compared honestly
- Consumer proposal compared with bankruptcy
Disclosure: Some links on this page are referral links, and Bremo may earn a commission if you open an account, at no cost to you. This does not change what we recommend. Sources, all read on 1 August 2026 from the consolidated texts published by the Department of Justice on the Justice Laws website, and from no secondary source except where noted: sections 627.01, 627.3, 627.37, 627.43 and 627.65 of the Bank Act, S.C. 1991, c. 46, shown as current to 14 June 2026 and last amended 26 March 2026; and sections 13 and 14 of, and the schedule to, the Financial Consumer Protection Framework Regulations, SOR/2021-181, shown as current to 14 June 2026. The date on which the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments became Canada's single designated external complaints body for banking is taken from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada news release announcing the change. The Access to Basic Banking Services Regulations, SOR/2003-184, which many older articles still cite, were repealed by SOR/2021-181 with effect from 29 June 2022. Statutes and regulations are amended, and whether particular conduct crosses a line depends on facts a web page cannot know. This is educational general information, not legal advice. If a debt is escalating, talk to a lawyer, a community legal clinic or a licensed insolvency trustee.