| Bank Act | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Parliament of Canada | |
| |
| Citation | Bank Act [1] |
| Enacted by | Parliament of Canada |
| Assented to | December 13, 1991 |
The Bank Act (1991, c. 46) (French : Loi sur les banques, the Act) is an act of the Parliament of Canada respecting banks and banking.
The Bank Act was originally passed in 1871. The terms of the Act provide for a statutory review of the Act on a regular basis to ensure that legislators update the Act in order that it keep pace with developments in the financial system. Historically, this was done on a decennial basis. [2] In 1992, this requirement was changed to every five years. The Act contains a "sunset" clause providing that it and the bank charters provided by it will expire unless the statutory review is conducted every five years. In 2016 the Federal Government proposed a 2 year extension [3] to the review deadline. The most recent statutory review of the Act took place in 2019 with the next review scheduled for 2023. [4]
In 2010, the Parliament of Canada passed amendments to the Act to allow federal credit unions to exist as a new class of financial institution. Credit unions differ from banks in that they are member-owned, democratically controlled and governed by co-operative principles. The Bank Act allows that federal credit unions may either be created by five persons (of which three must be individuals), or through the continuance of one or more credit unions existing within provincial jurisdiction. The provisions came into force at the end of 2012.
The first federal credit union in Canada was UNI Financial Cooperation (formerly Mouvement des caisses populaires acadiennes), based in New Brunswick, which converted to a federal charter in 2016. [5]
On June 30, 2017, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions issued an advisory, stating that it planned to enforce the Bank Act's prohibitions on using the word or verbiage "bank" in connection to any financial service that is not a bank. The terms were required to be removed from websites by the end of 2017, from print materials by the end of June 2018, and from physical signage by the end of June 2019. The announcement was criticised by credit unions, who believed that it would make it difficult to market their services in a comparable manner to banks, as well as the costs of updating marketing materials to comply with the mandate. The OSFI suspended the advisory in August 2017, after the federal government stated that it would review the rules. In February 2018, the Bank Act was amended as a riser to the federal budget, allowing credit unions to use banking vernacular to market their services. [6] [7] [8]
The Act groups banks in three schedules. Schedule I banks are domestic banks allowed to accept deposits. Schedule II banks are subsidiaries of foreign banks that allowed to accept deposits through branches in Canada. Schedule III banks are foreign banks with certain restrictions upon the banking business they can conduct in Canada.
The Canadian banking industry includes 20 domestic banks, 24 foreign bank subsidiaries and 22 foreign bank branches operating in Canada. [9] ATB Financial, a financial institution owned by the Government of Alberta, and Canada's many credit unions, are not included in this list.
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation supplying deposit insurance to depositors in American commercial banks and savings banks. The FDIC was created by the Banking Act of 1933, enacted during the Great Depression to restore trust in the American banking system. More than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. The insurance limit was initially US$2,500 per ownership category, and this has been increased several times over the years. Since the enactment of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to $250,000 per ownership category. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the government of the United States, and according to the FDIC, "since its start in 1933 no depositor has ever lost a penny of FDIC-insured funds".
A financial institution, sometimes called a banking institution, is a business entity that provides service as an intermediary for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial institution:
In most legal jurisdictions, a financial institution is required to obtain a banking license before it is legally permitted to carry on a banking business. Besides other requirements, such a business is not permitted to contain in its name words such as bank, insurance, national, etc, unless it holds an appropriate license. Depending on banking regulations, jurisdictions may offer different types of banking licenses, such as:
Big Five is the name colloquially given to the five largest banks that dominate the banking industry of Canada: Bank of Montreal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD).
Reserve requirements are central bank regulations that set the minimum amount that a commercial bank must hold in liquid assets. This minimum amount, commonly referred to as the commercial bank's reserve, is generally determined by the central bank on the basis of a specified proportion of deposit liabilities of the bank. This rate is commonly referred to as the reserve ratio. Though the definitions vary, the commercial bank's reserves normally consist of cash held by the bank and stored physically in the bank vault, plus the amount of the bank's balance in that bank's account with the central bank. A bank is at liberty to hold in reserve sums above this minimum requirement, commonly referred to as excess reserves.
Manulife Bank of Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of Manulife. As a direct bank, it offers high-interest chequing & savings accounts, credit cards, lines of credit and mortgages, including Manulife One. Since it was established in 1993, Manulife Bank has grown to more than $29 billion in assets and serves customers across Canada. Manulife Bank headquarters are in Waterloo, Ontario.
In public finance, a lender of last resort (LOLR) is the institution in a financial system that acts as the provider of liquidity to a financial institution which finds itself unable to obtain sufficient liquidity in the interbank lending market when other facilities or such sources have been exhausted. It is, in effect, a government guarantee to provide liquidity to financial institutions. Since the beginning of the 20th century, most central banks have been providers of lender of last resort facilities, and their functions usually also include ensuring liquidity in the financial market in general.
The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is a Canadian federal Crown Corporation created by Parliament in 1967 to provide deposit insurance to depositors in Canadian commercial banks and savings institutions. CDIC insures Canadians' deposits held at Canadian banks up to C$100,000 in case of a bank failure. CDIC automatically insures many types of savings against the failure of a financial institution. However, the bank must be a CDIC member and not all savings are insured. CDIC is also Canada's resolution authority for banks, federally regulated credit unions, trust and loan companies as well as associations governed by the Cooperative Credit Associations Act that take deposits.
Citibank Canada, operating as Citi Canada, is the Canadian subsidiary of the American multinational financial services corporation Citigroup. Citi Canada is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with offices in Calgary, London, Ontario, Montreal, Mississauga, and Vancouver.
Banking in Australia is dominated by four major banks: Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group and National Australia Bank. There are several smaller banks with a presence throughout the country which includes Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Suncorp Bank, and a large number of other financial institutions, such as credit unions, building societies and mutual banks, which provide limited banking-type services and are described as authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs). Many large foreign banks have a presence, but few have a retail banking presence. The central bank is the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). The Australian government’s Financial Claims Scheme (FCS) guarantees deposits up to $250,000 per account-holder per ADI in the event of the ADI failing.
Deposit insurance or deposit protection is a measure implemented in many countries to protect bank depositors, in full or in part, from losses caused by a bank's inability to pay its debts when due. Deposit insurance systems are one component of a financial system safety net that promotes financial stability.
Bank rate, also known as discount rate in American English, is the rate of interest which a central bank charges on its loans and advances to a commercial bank. The bank rate is known by a number of different terms depending on the country, and has changed over time in some countries as the mechanisms used to manage the rate have changed.
Financial institutions in Australia are only permitted to accept deposits from the public if they are authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs). The ADI’s authority is granted by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) under the Banking Act 1959 (Cth).
Banking in Canada is one of Canada's most important industries with several banks being among its largest and most profitable companies.
Bank regulation in the United States is highly fragmented compared with other G10 countries, where most countries have only one bank regulator. In the U.S., banking is regulated at both the federal and state level. Depending on the type of charter a banking organization has and on its organizational structure, it may be subject to numerous federal and state banking regulations. Apart from the bank regulatory agencies the U.S. maintains separate securities, commodities, and insurance regulatory agencies at the federal and state level, unlike Japan and the United Kingdom. Bank examiners are generally employed to supervise banks and to ensure compliance with regulations.
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, commonly referred to as Vancity, is a member-owned financial co-operative headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. By asset size, Vancity is the largest community credit union in Canada as of 2019, with CA$28.2 billion in assets plus assets under administration, 60 branches and more than 543,000 members.
