#h4 Canadian banking industry is dominated by six banks

More facts detail the control that banks have over the financial services industry in Canada, as of 2003:

• Banks accounted for the largest portion of the Canadian financial services sector, reporting $1.257 billion in domestic assets, or over 55 percent of the sector's total assets.

• Banks make 48 percent of their revenue from net interest income.

• Banks recorded a return on equity of 14.6 percent.

• The financial services sector represented 6 percent of Canada's gross domestic product.

• Canada's six leading banks generated 33 percent of their net income from foreign sources, especially from the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia.

• The six largest banks had more than 90 percent of total bank assets and about 76 percent of the total assets of the deposit-taking sector.

• Canadian banks accounted for 93 percent of domestic market share, while foreign banks made up the remaining seven percent.

• There are 69 total banks: 18 domestic, 29 foreign bank subsidiaries and 22 foreign bank branches.

• Canada has close to 9,000 bank branches and about 16,500 automated teller machines.

• There are 600 credit unions and almost 700 caisses populaires (cooperative, member-owned financial institutions, mostly found in the Province of Quebec), with almost 3,600 locations and more than 4,500 ATMs.

• Banks own three of the top 10 mutual fund companies in Canada; they also own insurance companies and all of the large securities dealers.