The relationship between financial innovators and regulators has been historically tense, with financial innovators taking advantage of loopholes and regulators desperately trying to keep pace with innovations while dealing with limited resources and long bureaucratic processes. Nonetheless, in...

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...

Transforming raw data into information and then to intelligence is crucial to effective business strategy and can add substantial value to business operations. In the rapidly changing financial services environment, higher decision intelligence enables optimum use of capital and impacts...

The growth of shadow banking in recent decades has changed the concept of banking. It has meant less deposit-taking and lending and more market-oriented banking activities, including in particular a growing trade in securitized products. However, shadow banking is opaque; a problem that was...

The federal government’s role in mortgage markets is pervasive and should be scaled back, while encouraging more competition in the mortgage insurance business, according to this study. The author notes that the mortgage insurance book of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, which is...

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...

While a bulk of economic theoretical and empirical research deals with various aspects of financial liberalisation, there is far less research devoted to the measurement of financial liberalisation. In this paper we calculate an index of financial liberalisation in 18 transition countries in the...

Can a US-style housing bust happen in Canada? Recent swings in Canadian house prices have raised concerns about the possibility. To evaluate the likelihood of a US style housing market crash in Canada, this paper examines what caused the US housing boom and bust from 2000 to 2009. A decline in...

Sri Lanka has achieved a high level of financial inclusion compared to other South Asian countries. Its financial sector comprises a wide range of financial institutions providing financial services such as loans, savings, pawning, leasing and finance, and remittance and money transfer...