News

Press conference following the release of the Financial System Review.

Household indebtedness and housing market imbalances—the most important vulnerabilities for the Canadian financial system—have moved higher over the past six months, the Bank of Canada said today in its Financial System Review (FSR).

This issue of the Financial System Review reflects the Bank’s judgment that household indebtedness and housing market imbalances–the most important vulnerabilities for the Canadian financial system–have moved higher over the past six months. However, the financial system remains resilient, and macroeconomic conditions continue to improve. Other vulnerabilities discussed in this FSR are fragile fixed-income market liquidity and the capacity of an interconnected financial system to mitigate cyber threats.

The Bank of Canada today began circulating the $10 commemorative bank note that celebrates the 150^th anniversary of Confederation. Canadians can now obtain this special note at financial institutions. Only 40 million notes are being issued—roughly one for every Canadian.

This report describes a joint endeavour between public and private sectors to explore a wholesale payment system based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). They find that a stand-alone DLT system is unlikely to be as beneficial as a centralized payment system in terms of core operating costs; however, it could increase financial system efficiency as a result of integration with the broader financial market infrastructure.