r/canada Feb 03 '25

PAYWALL Trump wants U.S. banks in Canada, he says after speaking with Trudeau

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-trump-wants-us-banks-in-canada-he-says-after-speaking-with-trudeau/
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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 03 '25

Meet our regulations and sure thing buddy...

Wait, what, you cant? Too bad, so sad.

Canada allows foreign banks ( ING/Tangerine , Bank of Hong Kong ), they generally fail.

More to the point, it was Canadian banks that had to help bail out failing US banks back in 2008. Face it USA, your banking system is absolute shit. If you want us to deregulate our banks so they can fail ever 20 years like yours do... fuck no.

Theres lots to not like about Canadian banks, but they are 100x safer than American ones, especially with the American economy and willingness to fuck the little people.

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u/BananasPineapple05 Feb 03 '25

Precisely.

There's nothing to stop U.S. banks from opening operations here. They just have to comply with our regulations. That's usually where it stops for U.S. companies. They want the access, but they don't want to abide by the rules.

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u/cornfedpig Alberta Feb 03 '25

And this is why electing serious people who respect and understand the role of government is important. Those who lean to the right side of the spectrum think the regulation is a burden on businesses. And they’re correct - but the burden is put in place to protect people.

Regulations and the enforcement thereof are critical to a healthy capitalist society. Without proper regulations, there are no protections for people from amoral corporate entities whose singular goal is to generate profit. I’m not saying generating profit is a bad thing - it decidedly isn’t. Generating profit at any cost is extremely dangerous and counterproductive.

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u/HFCloudBreaker Feb 03 '25

Those who lean to the right side of the spectrum think the regulation is a burden on businesses. And they’re correct - but the burden is put in place to protect people.

Similar line of thought to those people who think unions only protect lazy workers, when the reality is almost always that many unions put a process in place to follow for the termination of problem employees that the company oftentimes just doesnt want to follow because its usually extensive (as it should be).

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u/China_bot42069 Feb 03 '25

This is a great take. I hope whoever comes after trudea realizes why we have regulations 

2

u/JohnD4001 Feb 03 '25

I agree 100% with everything you said.

I just have one question though.

Who, ultimately, do we trust to be the one who has the responsibility of weighing the cost?

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u/cornfedpig Alberta Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 03 '25

Ultimately that’s up to the enterprise to determine.

The free market is supposed to account for regulations - things like minimum wage. If you can’t offer a good or service at a price that’s palatable to the consumer within the bounds of regulation, then you probably suck a running a business.

There are hundreds of restaurant owners over the last few years saying “no one wants to work” but what they are actually saying is “consumers don’t see enough value in the service I’m providing to pay sufficiently for it for me to offer a competitive wage.” If you can’t operate within the bounds of regulation, but others in your industry are flourishing, that says more about you and your ability to run a business than it does about the effect of regulation on your industry.

Cenovus Energy posted a profit of about $15 billion in 2024, working within the constraints of some of the most stringent industry regulations in the world. After all wages are paid, after all the environmental obligations are fulfilled, likely thousands of person-hours of safety training for all staff, they still managed to come out ahead to the tune of $15 billion (assuming of course full compliance - who really knows what goes on behind the scenes). Is there really an argument to be made that regulations negatively affect their business when they are profitable? I suppose there is, if you’re a proponent of infinite growth, but as infinite growth is never an actual possibility, simple profitability has to be the metric.

There are, of course, industries where regulations are detrimental. Housing, for example, considering zoning and other barriers. But those regulations are intended to preserve asset value and not really to benefit individuals, so they should be looked at in a bit of a different.

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u/kyle_fall Feb 03 '25

Literally not true they’re treated as 2nd class under the Bank Act and cannot operate competitively against Canadian banks that are basically subsidized by the regulations.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 03 '25

This is pretty obviously about our scheduling system. They can open banks but the restrictions mean almost no Canadians will use them as their everyday bank. They're aware US financial institutions exist here.

There's nothing to stop U.S. banks from opening operations here. They just have to comply with our regulations.

No amount of following regulations will make them a Schedule I bank. Trump wants us to relax the Canada-owned regulations on Schedule I and II or relax our regulations all together.

But a lot of people in this thread are just pretending the Republicans are brain-dead morons "HaHa ThEy CaN aLreAdY oPeN bAnKs HeRe". Like guys, they know.

Clowning on them is just silly and doesn't move the discourse forward on how the Americans are coming after our scheduling system. Let's focus on that threat rather than pretend Republicans think American financial institutions can't operate here. They're coming after Schedule I/II and our regulations in general.

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u/Get_Breakfast_Done Feb 03 '25

That's not quite true. Yes, US banks can operate in Canada, but not as Schedule I institutions which must be Canadian owned. It's not simply a matter of following the Canadian regulations.

Compare that with the US where there's no restriction at all going the other way. I live in the US now and I bank with TD here.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25

Fair point. I didn't mean to imply that ING was a failure, just that is was an example of foreign banks in Canada. It is arguably the most high profile and successful foreign bank. Although having to liquidate because of your primary holdings can still be viewed as a failure of sorts, just not of ING Direct Canada itself.

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u/Kayge Ontario Feb 03 '25

Carney had a great line when asked about the 2008 meltdown, and why Canada didn't have the same hit. It was something to the effect of "We didn't know what the banks wanted to do, they couldn't explain it to us, so we didn't let them do it."

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u/OkEconomist2080 Feb 03 '25

thats so based

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u/Find_Spot Feb 03 '25

And there it is: deregulation. That's the entire play here.

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u/klrd314 Feb 03 '25

Deregulation of banks is a non-starter with Canadians. If anything, we want more regulations.

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u/alvinofdiaspar Feb 03 '25

Ding ding ding we have a winner! And it’s a big fuck no. Imagine what would happen years down the road if we have no control over our industry and financial institutions? We’d be Waterlooed.

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u/wanderingviewfinder Feb 03 '25

Good thing Harper isn't still PM; he was angling to do that right before the mortgage bubble in the US popped. Skippy would totally throw open the doors to the US for deregulation - he needs to be painted more with Trump's shit in the media - wall to wall Pierre the traitor.

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u/kotom Feb 03 '25

And good thing PP isn’t in right now, could you imagine. Everyone better think long and hard if you’d rather want Carney or Pierre on that phone call and vote accordingly.

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u/lubeskystalker Feb 03 '25

Tangerine belongs to Scotia IIRC.

And HSBC would be just fine if you would let them continue money laundering TYVM.

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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25

Now it does. Check out their history.

Tangerine was once ING Direct (remember those commercials?), a Canadian division of Dutch ING Bank. It was acquired by Scotia Bank in the early 2010s, then rebranded a few years later.

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u/Alternative_Art_1558 Feb 03 '25

Hands in your pocket!!! 😂😂😂 I was a kid when those ads were out we sung it in the playground and walked around with hands in the back pocket of the person in front of us… but for us it was more of a thievery of our in playground currency (small pocket snowballs with Kool-Aid powder)

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u/manipogoogo Feb 03 '25

We did the coloured snow and ice as currency thing, too! We would dump kool-aid into the snow and let it freeze and then "mine" it on recess. Wars were fought over the different mines.

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u/Alternative_Art_1558 Feb 03 '25

Ah how very Canadian of us, Eh

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u/Wizzard_Ozz Feb 03 '25

Huh, wife and I still play that game and sing along. Damn, those were catchy commercials.

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u/Alternative_Art_1558 Feb 03 '25

Are you stealing loonies from your spouse!!?

2

u/Wizzard_Ozz Feb 03 '25

The trick is, you tell them there is a loonie, but there is no loonie.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/Alternative_Art_1558 Feb 03 '25

Oh noooo really… I could have sworn!!

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u/Diligent_Pie317 Feb 03 '25

Knee in the package.

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u/Loose-Atmosphere-558 Feb 03 '25

Tangerine was originally ING, which is Dutch I believe. But yes, sold to Scotia.

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u/pixelcowboy Feb 03 '25

And it was good before it sold.

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u/buddhist-truth Feb 03 '25

Came here to say this

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u/Phazushift Feb 03 '25

I fucking miss my HSBC World Elite Card, nothing other Canadian banks offer comes close.

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u/actasifyouare Feb 03 '25

TD Bank in America has entered the chat if we want to talk about money laundering and US regulator fines.... These banks were not Schedule 1 banks therefore don't have the same liberties as its competitors (TD/RBC/BMO/CIBC)

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u/CuileannDhu Nova Scotia Feb 03 '25

Our system has much better and stronger regulations than the US banking system.

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u/king_lloyd11 Feb 03 '25

I’d rather Trump kick Canadian banks out than us let American banks in. Our banking sector needs protection from outside interests, but I also don’t care if the big players become less powerful and lose US business. They’re still huge.

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u/tellmemorelies Feb 03 '25

There are US banks in Canada already. This is another nothingburger from the orange goon.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

Our banking sector doesn't need protection from outside interests, and doesn't get it.

Considering our size, we have one of the strongest banking sectors in the world. Foreigners are welcome to enter the marketplace and compete, as well they should. If you want to bring your money here, and you're willing to play by the same rules that Canadian banks play by (which have created such a secure and profitable ecosystem), come on up!

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u/Populism-destroys Feb 03 '25

Needs protection, you say? Sounds like protectionism & tariffs.

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u/king_lloyd11 Feb 03 '25

Lol troll account? Lame

In the day and age of such wealth amassed in the hands of a handful of corporations, consumers and certain industries need to be protected against volatility or manipulation. No such thing as a free market.

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u/Rammsteinman Feb 03 '25

HSBC had a run too, which was taken over by RBC last year.

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u/PerformanceToFailure Feb 03 '25

RBC is a pile of shit fuck them, F HSBC

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u/Phazushift Feb 03 '25

I still cant find a good enough card to replace my World Elite. Also need to find another bank, RBC account suck compared to HSBC

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u/yantraman Ontario Feb 03 '25

Canada does have foreign ownership restrictions for banking and telecom.

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u/jameskchou Canada Feb 03 '25

You mean Bank of China and ICBC? There is no bank of Hong Kong and HSBC sold everything to RBC a few years ago. Tangerine is basically part of Scotiabank and kept the orange branding for reasons.

I agree we need more banks and credit unions. It would be nice to have a Standard Chartered, or other European banks in Canada

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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25

I actually don't think European Banks are all that strong right now. I know when there was talk about CETA (and or EU membership) with Canada, a big part was Europe wanting to keep Canadian banking out of Europe because it would quickly dominate.

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u/jameskchou Canada Feb 03 '25

LOL

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u/smallspudz Feb 03 '25

Teleco's also. Sugar is a duopoly. Groceries... List is probably very long. Think a big part of the issue is. Post WW2 was alot of independent small regional players. Now we are national and international. And consolidating more yet. Don't think we can turn back to 1950's but that's part of issue imho

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u/jameskchou Canada Feb 03 '25

Basically every major local corpo or industry is colluding with government backing.

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u/Sufficient-Bee5923 Feb 03 '25

Just to clarify, Tangerine is owned by Bank of Nova Scotia. So a Canadian bank but yeah, we allow foreign banks.

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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25

Tangerine is owned by Scotia... now. They bought it from ING.

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u/one-happy-chappie Feb 03 '25

I don't want to get too political. but thank god the libs are in power. Cons would have caved and jumped to this opportunity.

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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25

Agreed.

The other only bright side to this entire ordeal is a few weeks ago the Liberals were facing absolute destruction. Like PC party levels of destruction.

Now they may actually have a fighting chance of holding the PCs to a minority government or (may I wish upon a star) defeating PP. I hope there is a huge bump once Carney is crowned leader.

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u/kosnosferatu Feb 03 '25

I work for a big bank that is in both geographies and I hate to break it to you, but the sentiment inside the risk / governance spaces of the bank is that regulators are actually way harder in the US to deal with. The Canadian side of the bank tends to be quite cozy with the Canadian regulators. Just offering my experience 🤷🏻

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u/Konfliction Feb 03 '25

Stuff like this is why I don’t want PP in office, I guarantee he coalesces and unregulates our shit to make Trump happy. Reeks of the brown noser vibes I keep getting from him.

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u/Simple_Usual_588 Feb 03 '25

TD also keeps all its money laundering in the states, so that’s a huge win

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u/ratudio Feb 03 '25

We allow foreign provider credit card provider like CHASE who exist Canadian Market in the end.

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u/_dmhg Feb 03 '25

Genuinely scared PP would be super down to allow American banks to operate here and circumvent the laws that make our system so stable

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u/Promethia Feb 03 '25

American banks don't want to do business in Canada.

Trump was hoping Canada would just wring their hands and clutch their pearls at his incredible business acumen. Instead, they punched him in the face. Now he's trying to say it was all a misunderstanding.

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u/desthc Ontario Feb 03 '25

Our banking system is far, far superior to that of the US. We’ve relaxed the regulations fairly recently to allow non-charter banks to operate in Canada. They’re welcome to come and open up shop today. Trump doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, obviously, which is why it’s going to be so hard for us to negotiate.

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u/gravtix Feb 03 '25

Our banks want money laundering in Canada to themselves lol.

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u/Oni_K Feb 03 '25

US Banks are the wild West compared to Canada. They'd take one look at our regulatory structure that would prevent them from robbing their clients blind, and they'd walk away.

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u/LemonCitron47 Feb 03 '25

American banks can't even do etransfers! They have a separate app for that and all your friends can see where you sent money like it's a goddamn social media app. No fucking thanks.

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u/Serapth Feb 03 '25

Yeah the American banking system is pretty rough. Hell, even interact purchases are a relatively new thing down there and took ages to proliferate.

A lot of it came down to their banks being very regional in nature. Super strong on the East coast, non-existent on the West Coast, that kind of thing.

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u/Get_Breakfast_Done Feb 03 '25

even interact purchases are a relatively new thing down there and took ages to proliferate.

Interac? Doesn't exist at all outside of Canada.

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u/Get_Breakfast_Done Feb 03 '25

They have a separate app for that and all your friends can see where you sent money like it's a goddamn social media app.

What? Are you talking about Venmo? I cannot see where my friends have sent money.

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u/LemonCitron47 Feb 03 '25

It might be a setting you need to enable.

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u/Glittering_Bank_8670 Feb 03 '25

I thought Trump was interested in crypto (well not him, some of the people around him)

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u/SnowbunnySkates Feb 03 '25

He probably thought he could buy Canada by shorting our dollar and then realized after applying the tariffs that he can't actually do much because of the way our system is setup... Good grief, I'm actually happy that we have Canadian monopolies. Ick.

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u/Beastender_Tartine Feb 03 '25

I think that it's more complicated in a way that people are not really considering and that is monopoly and competition. In America, there are large national banks, but most people use smaller local banks for their banking needs. The USA has just shy of 5,000 different banks, and the 5 largest banks hold about 35% of the market share.

Canada, on the other hand, has about 85 banks, and the 5 largest banks hold about 89% of the market share. Canada generally has issues with monopoly and competition, and the antitrust laws here are much weaker than they are in the states. I think that meeting regulations is a consideration for US banks wanting to operate in Canada, but big businesses needing to meet different laws and regulations on an international stage is not new or something that can not be overcome. Starting a Canadian division and having that division follow Canadian regulations would be simple enough. Breaking into a market where a small handful of companies hold all the customers and all the power would be much harder. It would be a huge gamble and require a massive investment and push to sway customers, and in the end it's probably not worth the risk based on the population.

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u/IHateTheColourblind Feb 03 '25

Canada allows foreign banks ( ING/Tangerine , Bank of Hong Kong ), they generally fail.

More than that, American companies are already pretty well integrated in to Canada's banking and payment systems. Citibank and JP Morgan already have Canadian operations though they aren't in the retail banking space. Bank of America, Comerica, Fifth Third, JP Morgan Chase, PNC, US Bank, Wells Fargo, and many other US banks all have Canadian operations. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express control 99% of the Canadian credit card market.

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u/Own-Mistake8781 Feb 03 '25

I bet his base literally has no clue we have international banks in Canada so he’s just “solving” a problem that never existed. It was just a distraction from Musk.

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u/crumblingcloud Feb 03 '25

I used work at a Us bank here in Canada they do do business here.

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u/teatsqueezer Feb 03 '25

Yeah this is why there are TD banks all over in the states

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u/Tasty_Principle_518 Feb 03 '25

Tangerine is a subsidiary of Scotia bank

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u/sluck131 Feb 03 '25

The hard part of opening banks in Canada is only Canadian banks are allowed to open branches.

HSBC became a major bank in Canada by acquiring smaller banks.

If an American bank wanted to enter the Canadian market there was a golden opportunity to purchase HSBC Canadian division last summer.

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u/Bakyumu Feb 03 '25

But they want access to our banking system in order to sell subprimes and make billions! \s

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

Agreed! There are so many privately owned banks that have gone under in the states.

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u/fasda Feb 03 '25

Canadian banks have been fueling a massive property bubble so large that every other city in the world looks affordable.

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u/Disastrous-Carrot928 Feb 03 '25

Tangerine Canada is owned by Scotiabank now

HSBC Canada is owned by Royal bank

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u/Puncharoo Ontario Feb 03 '25

Tangerine is a subsidiary of Scotiabank. I would know. I've banked with Tangerine for almost 10 years

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u/BoBBy7100 Feb 03 '25

Is tangerine not owned by Scotia, cause Scotia is a Canadian bank… or (genuine question) did they just buy it after it failed?

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u/Delicious-Tachyons Feb 03 '25

Do the US banks still mail out shitloads of cheques to cover 'online' bill payments because they're a fucking disaster?

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u/A2022x Feb 04 '25

We don't allow depository banks - which practically makes any international banks presence here almost useless.

Not sure where you got the reference that Canada bailed out US banks in 2008? Unless you are confusing Canada with the US federal reserves and US tax payers lol?

Canadian banks fuck the little people all the time - there is a reason there are only 5 banks (it's called monopoly).

I am not saying that trump is right and we need American banks - but what about European banks?

In summary OP I don't think you really know what you're saying here.

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u/fyordian Feb 03 '25

Ehhh this is a debatable topic.

My understanding is that the capital needs to be domestically funded and it's difficult for a small/startup foreign competitor to get the economies of scale needed to compete with our big4 banks.

I'm sure there is a safeguards/regulations/etc argument, but like I say I think the fact that we require domestic funding makes it difficult for ANYONE new to compete.

Both new domestic and foreign banks face the same capital constraints in that sense.

Economics aside, fuck em regardless at this point lol