Article content

Banking is a fantastic business to be in, if the latest round of earnings by Canada’s Big Six banks is any indication.

Each of them beat fiscal first-quarter market expectations, had double-digit profit increases over a year earlier and collectively earned some $10.5 billion in adjusted net income.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or New banks try to carve out a niche the Big Six don't already dominate in hyper-profitable business Back to video

It’s no wonder there is a new crop of entrants looking to carve out a piece of the Canadian financial services market for themselves.





The latest entrants to the chartered bank landscape hope to parlay the recognition value of their upgraded status into new customers.





[/np_storybar]

Five new domestic banks have been approved by the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) since the beginning of 2016. There are now 32 Schedule I banks — which are allowed to take deposits that may be eligible for coverage by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corp. — up 40 per cent from 23 banks five years ago. OSFI won’t comment on the applications in progress, but Meridian Credit Union is also undergoing the multi-year, multi-million-dollar process.

Costly brick-and-mortar branches are no longer a mandatory requirement when more and more Canadians are happy to do their banking on laptops or smartphones, but Canada’s financial behemoths are formidable competition.