The Green Sheet Online Edition

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.