Nicholas Le Pan, head of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions for the past six years, told employees yesterday that he had tendered his resignation to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Tuesday.

He intends to leave his job at OSFI, the federal government body charged with overseeing the banking and insurance sectors, on October 13.

After holding senior positions at OSFI for six years, Le Pan was named to the top post in 2001.

Before joining OSFI, he held several high-ranking positions in the federal government, including special adviser to the top bureaucrat at the Department of Finance, and he was the department’s assistant deputy minister for the financial sector policy branch.

Le Pan has sent letters to the institutions his organization regulates, informing them of his resignation.

In the letter, Le Pan doesn’t give a specific reason for the move, noting that he has spent five years as Superintendent and 11 years in a senior role at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.

He says that OSFI is well positioned to continue its role as the federal financial industry’s prudential regulator. The government will go about finding his replacement, he notes.