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The Canadian bank model secret? | risk aversion

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The general theme that the ‘Canadian Bank model’ is superior has constantly intrigued me, having been personally involved there.

Size and Diversification: They are smaller and less diversified, so some risk mitigation appears there. This is probably the biggest reason.

Number: There are only five of them, of any consequence, so a couple of regulators can do a lot of supervision there.

Loan restriction: there is a restriction on loan participation relative to capital.

Purdy Crawford/ Pan Canadian Investments: The Canadian government did presciently freeze $35 billion in derivatives back in 2007.

But no … in aggregate there is no enormous winning theme, or singular secret in Canada.  In typical Canadian form its the softly softly approach, and David Olive in todays Star sums it up nicely with this quote below.

They are just plain old fashioned ‘risk averse’ supplemented by being too small (asset size is whats important here, not market cap) to take part in large scale international risky investments.

Obama eyes Canada as bank model | The Star

As a result of their largely shunning the purchase of multimillion-dollar packages of U.S. junk mortgages, Canadian banks have earned international acclaim for their continued sound condition. But that had nothing to do with the Canadian banks’ size or diversity of functions, and everything to do with prudent risk decisions and scrupulous regulatory supervision.


Posted in Canada Tagged: bank of canada, Canadian Banks, david olive, obama, risk, risk management

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