
The Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada’s largest lender, is facing billions of dollars in losses and is facing an uncertain future amid a global meltdown, its chief executive says.
Canada’s biggest banks are facing the prospect of a $1.4 billion to $2 billion drop in their profits over the next two years, as investors flee their safe havens and businesses collapse, according to Tim Bajarin, the bank’s CEO.
“We’ve been doing a lot of things that I’m sure were just not smart,” Bajrin told CBC News in an interview Thursday.
In a report issued Friday, the Financial Post said Canadian banks are likely to have lost $7.5 billion this year, and a further $3.3 billion in 2018.
Bajarin also said the bank is expecting to be forced to cut spending, including on new branches and a program to offer cheaper mortgages.
The Canadian Financial Services Commission said it is considering issuing a formal warning to banks, but Bajlin said he does not think it will.
He said the banks are doing a good job of meeting the challenges of the current crisis, but the bank should be doing more to make sure that people can make it to the bank.
Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada�s second-biggest lender, has said it expects to earn $1 billion in 2019, down from $1bn in 2016.
Bajran said the financial crisis has had an impact on profitability.
However, he said the impact has not been the same for the bank as it had been during the global financial crisis, and its losses are still much lower than those of the other Canadian banks.
“We�re very fortunate that we�ve been able to get through this crisis in a way that we haven�t lost all our customers,” he said.
“But we are still losing customers every day.”
Canada�s banks, which have been battered by the 2008 financial crisis that forced them to slash investment and shrink branches, are now reeling under the consequences of the global meltdown.
They are among the banks most vulnerable to the loss of customers, with billions of Canadians facing financial problems.
This story is developing.
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