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2191 Results

May 14, 1997

The changing business activities of banks in Canada

Over the last 30 years, the business mix of banks in Canada has changed significantly. Progress in information-processing technology, legislative changes, and market forces have combined to blur the traditional distinctions between banks and other financial institutions and have allowed banks to offer a much wider range of products and services. In this article, the author reviews the expansion of bank lending to households over this period and their recent movement into personal wealth management. While these trends were facilitated by revisions to legislation, they also reflected the changing needs of the "baby boom" generation, first as home-buyers and, more recently, as middle-aged investors. On the commercial and corporate side, banks reacted to the rapid expansion of securities markets (and to the reduced demand for intermediation by both lenders/depositors and borrowers) by moving into investment banking, after legislative changes opened this business to them in the late 1980s. They also used their expertise in credit assessment and risk management to provide credit guarantees and to act as counterparties and intermediaries in derivatives markets. Notable in this broadening of bank activities has been their more recent entry into the trust, mutual fund, and retail brokerage business. The banks have also made preliminary forays into insurance. The expansion of off-balance-sheet activities has made fee income an increasingly important part of bank earnings. The article also looks at the emerging tools and techniques that will most likely transform the structure of banking in the future.

Multilateral Development Bank Credit Rating Methodology: Overcoming the Challenges in Assessing Relative Credit Risk in Highly Rated Institutions Based on Public Data

Staff discussion paper 2017-6 David Xiao Chen, Philippe Muller, Hawa Wagué
The investment of foreign exchange reserves or other asset portfolios requires an assessment of the credit quality of counterparties. Traditionally, foreign exchange reserve managers and other investors have relied on credit rating agencies (CRAs) as the main source for credit assessments.
May 16, 2013

Modelling the Asset-Allocation and Liability Strategy for Canada’s Foreign Exchange Reserves

The Bank of Canada recently developed an asset-liability-matching model to aid in the management of Canada’s foreign exchange reserves. The model allows policy-makers at the Bank and the Department of Finance to analyze asset-allocation and funding-mix decisions by quantifying both the risk-return and liquidity trade-offs for the assets, as well as the risk-cost trade-offs of the funding liabilities.
Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, G, G1, G11, G18
February 24, 2023

The lifespan of a bank note

At the Bank of Canada, we assessed the life cycle of bank notes to confirm that polymer notes have a smaller environmental footprint than paper notes. Polymer notes have a longer life and then are recycled.
Content Type(s): Explainers Subject(s): Currency, Bank notes
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