Canadian consumers are changing their banking habits to reduce physical contact with others because of COVID-19, according to a new study by McKinsey & Co.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to a massive surge in Canadians using digital identity authentication platforms to get immediate access to government emergency aid.
More than half of Toronto's population is foreign-born — a higher proportion than New York, Paris, London or Sydney — and about 52% identify as a visible minority. But the city's diversity fades in the upper echelons of its financial firms.
The Toronto company also said it set aside 232 million this year for U.S. regulatory probes into the bank’s metals-trading practices and costs tied to the wind-down of that business.
The second-quarter jump in provisions may be three to four times higher than a year earlier and will be mostly for loans that have yet to go bad, analysts said.
Canada's biggest banks have spent more than $71 billion on technology since the last financial crisis in a bet that clients would eventually become more digitally savvy. The pandemic is hastening that shift faster than they could've expected.
Manulife Financial, Canada's largest life insurer, is taking on the country's large lenders with a new package of banking products designed to win over digitally savvy millennials.
Canada is making a big leap in modernizing identity verification, tapping blockchain technology to let consumers digitally prove who they are to securely access banking and other personal services.
A top official at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions defended tougher underwriting rules blamed recently for a slump in the nation’s housing market, but left open the possibility that regulations could ease if conditions change.
