Canada Education Savings Grant

Purpose

This information bulletin is to inform the RESP Industry that the Canada Education Savings Program (CESP) is changing its system to no longer match transfer transactions. This change will take effect starting with the August 2010 production run.

Background

The program understands the effort that is required for promoters to track and correct unresolved transfers (transfers that have not matched in the CESP system).

The CESP is introducing this change to help ease some of the administrative burden. Consequently, CESP proposes to amend paragraph 3.7(b) of the current Promoter Agreement and paragraph 4.4(b) of the current Trustee Agreement to remove the requirement to match transfer transactions. CESP will send the amending agreements to Promoters and Trustees in July to seek their written consent to this amendment.

The Transfer Process

The CESP will continue to ensure good stewardship and accountability of public funds. The existing transfer process that the Industry is expected to follow will continue. Promoters/Trustees will still be required to:

• complete their portion of the transfer form;
• share all necessary and accurate information with the receiving promoter;
• process the transfers in their systems and properly update notional accounts;
• report the transfers to the CESP; and
• correct any transactions they process incorrectly.

How the CESP system will process the transfer

Transfers will be processed in the same manner as other transactions such as contributions and grant repayments.

The CESP system will conduct a standard validation of the transactions and error out any that do not conform to the Interface Transaction Standards (ITS).

Transactions that pass the validation process will be processed and reported back to Promoters in the monthly RT-900 processing report.

Transactions with errors will continue to be reported back to Promoters in the monthly Transaction Error Report.

The process of matching a transfer-out with a corresponding transfer-in will cease to take place in the CESP system.

How to deal with previously submitted transfers

Any transfer transaction that is currently residing in the CESP system waiting to be matched with a corresponding transfer will not need any further attention. These transactions have previously been reported back to Promoters in the RT-900 processing report.

Promoters should re-submit any past transfers that are unresolved. Once received they will be handled using the new requirements and reported back to Promoters as processed transactions.

Reporting back to promoters

Transfer transactions will be reported back to the industry in the usual manner. The table below is a comparison of the changes in reporting in the RT-900.

In addition, the CESP will no longer be sending out the Transfers Report (.xls) spreadsheet (30/60/90 Transfer Report) on a monthly basis.

Changes to the Interface Transaction Standards

This change should not require any systems changes for Promoters/Trustees. However, Promoters/Trustees may need to review and update their procedures accordingly.

The Interface Transaction Standards and RESP Provider User Guide will be updated to reflect this change. The updated version will be posted on the CESP Website in the upcoming months.

Compliance

The CESP will continue to monitor the Industry to ensure that all Promoters and Trustees carry on processing transfer transactions in accordance with existing administrative policies.

Questions

Questions on this Information Bulletin should be directed to the Canada Education Savings Program by e-mail at cesp-pcee@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca or by calling 1-888-276-3624.