(October 5 – 10:45 ET) – Ray Protti, president of the Canadian Bankers’ Association, is urging legislators to get on with financial services reform.
Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Canadian Club of Vancouver yesterday, Protti spoke about the structural changes that have radically altered the financial services landscape over the last decade. Those forces — intense competition, technological progress and regulatory reform — will demand even more change in the coming years, he said.
With the upcoming financial services legislation, he suggested there will likely be some new Canadian banks, including “private banks, community banks, insurance company banks, credit union banks, non-bank banks, and grocery store banks”.
He also suggested that the option of holding company structures and the new merger review process will mean new possibilities. “We are likely to see ownership linkages between financial and non-financial businesses, and strategic alliances within and without Canada’s national borders.”
Protti said that the increased competition for banks will be good for the system, particularly if it empowers Canadian firms to operate more freely in global markets. “International financial dealings are one of the largest and most exciting part of the future prospects of this industry,” he said, “If we get our regulatory system right, our financial services economic climate right, we can become the country of choice for new global providers. Don’t just set up in Canada to do business here. Set up in Canada to do business everywhere.”
To achieve this dream Protti argued that the feds must get reform right and the provinces must harmonize and streamline their own regulation. “If there are sound reasons to question having only a federal regulatory system, there are none that I know of for arguing against a single, harmonized national system, with Ottawa and the provinces working together.”
-IE Staff