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. In particular, this report highlights the role...

The authors examine the effect of a trade-off between shared credit risk and liquidity efficiency, among participants in Tranche 2 of the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS T2), on their decisions to leave open, or close, their bilateral credit limits (BCLs) to a participant at risk of imminent...

Payment services offered by non-banks have flourished in recent years. The author provides an overview of the different kinds of non-bank retail payments schemes currently available in Canada, illustrating each by focusing on a specific example. Current players in the Canadian marketplace...

The author reviews the theoretical and empirical literature to examine the traditional perception that the following trade-off exists between economic efficiency and stability in the banking system: a competitive banking system is more efficient and therefore important to growth, but market...

The authors empirically analyze the price-setting behaviour of the major Canadian banks in the residential mortgage market over the period 1991–2007. They use weekly posted prices of the major mortgage providers to study the degree of competition in mortgage price setting. Their results...

Many countries prohibit large shareholdings in their domestic banks. The authors examine whether such a restriction restrains competition in a duopolistic loan market. Blockholders may influence managers' output decisions by choosing capital structure, as in Brander and Lewis (1986). For the...

Previous surveys of Canadian and U.S. business owners suggest that access to financing in Canada may be more problematic than in the United States. Using the 2003 Survey of Small Business Financing in the United States and the 2004 Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises in Canada,...

The author documents some stylized facts about the Canadian financial structure. He explores these empirical facts in the context of Canadian financial legislation and finds that, over the 1990s, Canadian businesses became more heavily dependent on financial markets as their primary source of...

Payments systems are typically characterized by some degree of tiering, with upstream firms (clearing agents) providing settlement accounts to downstream institutions that wish to clear and settle payments indirectly in these systems (indirect clearers). Clearing agents provide their indirect...