Financial institutions

• August 23, 2003

  Financial Developments in Canada: Past Trends and Future Challenges

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2003 Charles Freedman, Walter Engert

  Freedman and Engert focus on the changing pattern of lending and borrowing in Canada in the past thirty to forty years, including the types of financial instruments used and the relative roles of financial institutions and financial markets. They examine how borrowing mechanisms have changed over time and consider the challenges facing the Canadian financial sector, including whether our financial markets are in danger of disappearing because of the size and pre-eminence of U.S. financial markets. Some of the trends examined here include syndicated lending, securitization, and credit derivatives, a form of financial engineering that has become increasingly important in the last few years. They also study bond and equity markets to determine whether Canadian capital markets have been hollowed out or abandoned by Canadian firms and conclude that the data do not provide much support for that view.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial services, Recent economic and financial developments

• The Syndicated Loan Market: Developments in the North American Context

  Staff Working Paper 2003-15 Jim Armstrong

  The author describes the rapid development of the syndicated corporate loan market in the 1990s. He explores the historical forces that led to the development of the contemporary U.S. syndicated loan market, which is effectively a hybrid of the investment banking and commercial banking worlds.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G2, G21

• An Index of Financial Stress for Canada

  Staff Working Paper 2003-14 Mark Illing, Ying Liu

  The authors develop an index of financial stress for the Canadian financial system. Stress is defined as the force exerted on economic agents by uncertainty and changing expectations of loss in financial markets and institutions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E5, G, G1, G10

• Bank Lending, Credit Shocks, and the Transmission of Canadian Monetary Policy

  Staff Working Paper 2003-9 Joseph Atta-Mensah, Ali Dib

  The authors use a dynamic general-equilibrium model to study the role financial frictions play as a transmission mechanism of Canadian monetary policy, and to evaluate the real effects of exogenous credit shocks. Financial frictions, which are modelled as spreads between deposit and loan interest rates, are assumed to depend on economic activity as well as on credit shocks.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Monetary policy framework, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, E4, E5, E51

• Managing Operational Risk in Payment, Clearing, and Settlement Systems

  Staff Working Paper 2003-2 Kim McPhail

  Awareness of operational risk has increased greatly in recent years, both at individual financial institutions and for payment, clearing, and settlement systems (PCSS). PCSS consist of networks of interconnected elements (i.e., central operators, participants, and settlement agents); operational problems at any one of the key elements have the potential to disrupt the system as a whole and negatively affect financial stability.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, G, G2, G21
• December 22, 2002

  Recent Changes to Canada's Financial Sector Legislation

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2002-2003 Fred Daniel

  Significant legislative developments have occurred in Canada's financial services sector over the past decade. This article chronicles those developments and gives an overview of the key provisions contained in Bill C–8, the legislation to reform the sector that came into force in October 2001. The article briefly describes some of the restructuring trends in the financial services sector since the early 1990s and the legislative changes that affected federal financial institutions over the period 1992–2001, as well as the process leading up to the 2001 legislation and some of its key provisions. The 2001 financial sector legislation was wide-ranging. It maintained the principle of wide ownership of large banks and introduced a number of changes, including a holding company option that can give greater organizational flexibility to banks and life insurance companies; the creation of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to enforce consumer-related provisions as they relate to federal financial institutions; and changes to the Canadian Payments Association and the access to and governance of the payments system.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Financial institutions

• Estimating Settlement Risk and the Potential for Contagion in Canada's Automated Clearing Settlement System

  Staff Working Paper 2002-41 Carol Ann Northcott

  Payments systems operate virtually unnoticed in our daily lives and yet are crucial to a wellfunctioning economy and financial system.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, G, G2, G21

• How Do Canadian Banks That Deal in Foreign Exchange Hedge Their Exposure to Risk?

  Staff Working Paper 2002-34 Chris D'Souza

  This paper examines the daily hedging and risk-management practices of financial intermediaries in the Canadian foreign exchange (FX) market.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, G, G1, G14, G2, G21

• Financial Structure and Economic Growth: A Non-Technical Survey

  Staff Working Paper 2002-24 Veronika Dolar, Césaire Meh

  There is a large body of literature that studies the relationship between financial structure (that is, the degree to which the financial system is either market- or intermediary-based) and long-run economic growth.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics, Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial services JEL Code(s): F, F3, F36, G, G0, G00, G1, G14, G2, G21, K, K2, K22, O, O1, O16

• The Financial Services Sector: An Update on Recent Developments

  Technical Report No. 91 Charles Freedman, Clyde Goodlet

  The Canadian financial industry continues to experience significant changes. This report provides an update on recent developments and re-examines a number of issues facing financial service providers that were identified in Technical Report No. 82.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial services JEL Code(s): G, G2