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A Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) sign is seen in downtown Toronto in this March 3, 2011 file photo.MARK BLINCH/Reuters

The final numbers are in, and the business of lending to Canadian consumers and businesses is slowing significantly in recent months.

All six of Canada's largest banks have now released their second-quarter results. As of Wednesday, when four banks had put out numbers, the slowdown in revenue and profit growth was quite stark, as Streetwise wrote. Thursday, after Royal Bank of Canada and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce put out their numbers, the trends look a little less unfriendly. RBC, the biggest bank, had a good quarter and that helped buoy the results. But the fact remains that revenue, profit and loan losses are all looking not as good as of the end of the second quarter as at the end of the first.

Streetwise summed the Canadian consumer and business banking results in those three areas from RBC, CIBC, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Montreal and National Bank of Canada. Bank of Nova Scotia was left out because its big acquisition of ING's Canadian banking business would skew the numbers too much.

The results showed that total revenue in Canadian banking from the five banks rose 3 per cent in the second quarter, down from a 3.7 per cent pace in the first quarter. Profit growth slowed from 9 per cent to 7 per cent.

The more telling signs of slowing are looking at the results sequentially – comparing the second quarter to the first. Aggregate Canadian banking revenue for the five banks fell to $9.87-billion from $10.03-billion.

Net income in total fell to $3.13-billion from $3.29-billion and provisions for credit losses rose to $938-million from $898-million.

Canadian banking is a smaller part of the revenue pie than in past for most Canadian banks, so there are offsets in businesses like wealth management, capital markets and foreign banking to help the companies through the soft spot at home. But at least this quarter, it appears the slowing in domestic banking that had long been expected is finally upon bank investors.

(Boyd Erman is a Globe and Mail Reporter & Streetwise Columnist.)

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Tickers mentioned in this story

Study and track financial data on any traded entity: click to open the full quote page. Data updated as of 28/03/24 3:23pm EDT.

SymbolName% changeLast
BMO-N
Bank of Montreal
+1.35%97.68
BMO-T
Bank of Montreal
+1.13%132.25
BNS-N
Bank of Nova Scotia
+1.21%51.78
BNS-T
Bank of Nova Scotia
+0.94%70.07
CM-N
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
+1.3%50.72
CM-T
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
+1.13%68.67
G-N
Genpact Ltd
+0.58%32.95
G-T
Augusta Gold Corp
+6.93%1.08
ING-N
ING Groep N.V. ADR
+1.41%16.49
NA-T
National Bank of Canada
-0.45%114.06
RY-N
Royal Bank of Canada
+0.48%100.88
RY-T
Royal Bank of Canada
+0.29%136.62
S-T
Sherritt Intl Rv
0%0.28
TD-T
Toronto-Dominion Bank
-0.63%81.75
Y-T
Yellow Pages Ltd
-0.3%9.86

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