Canadian Banks Buoyed by Mortgage Boom Look to Spur Other Loans
- Borrowing trends watched as lenders report quarterly earnings
- ‘You’d need to be looking at other categories’ for loan growth
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Canada’s big banks have weathered the pandemic on the strength of the country’s heated housing market. This week, they’ll get the chance to show whether they also have other avenues for loan growth.
Surging home prices and strong sales have boosted Canadian residential mortgage and home-equity credit balances at the country’s six biggest banks by C$151.2 billion ($118.2 billion) in the past year and a half. That 13% growth outstrips the gain of just 2.8% for all other types of loans from the banks’ domestic divisions since before Covid-19 took hold in North America.