I’ve always been astonished at how well Canada’s economy is doing relative to the global uproar. Especially for our neighbors south of us, the US has been suffering from the weak economy greatly with numerous large firms closing or having financial losses. On top of that, Canada greatly depends on the American economy yet it is impressively stable.

According to Forbes, the top five Canadian banks own approximately 90% of all of Canada’s banking assets. Foreign banks have also begun to diminish in asset shares with only HSBC having a significant piece of Canadian’s banking assets.

So does this exactly mean? Well a law passed in 1967 nicknamed “widely held” rule, prohibits the ownership of banks. Much unlike the capitalistic approach in the states where every bank can be owned by an individual or group, the law declined the demand of takeovers of Canadian banks. This in turn resulted in a less urgency to produce large short-term profits but instead focus on the long run. Forbes also stated that the stocks for RBC and TD bank both increased eight and five folds respectively while the best bank in the states, JP Morgan Chase only increased 13%.

I personally understand the importance of how our Canadian banks differ from the Americans’ because my mother works at a bank. She told me that TD recently bought out a bank in States. This shows how much Canadian banks are improving compared to their American counterparts.