Canada’s Banking Sector Needs Increased Competition, Bank of Canada Official Says

OTTAWA—The Bank of Canada’s No. 2 official endorsed a competition shakeup in the highly concentrated financial-services industry, saying the country’s banking sector is an oligopoly and changes could help lift Canada’s prolonged productivity slump.

Carolyn Rogers, the central bank’s senior deputy governor, on Thursday said Canadian authorities have done a stellar job in regulating banks by ensuring they have enough capital to survive shocks such as the 2008-09 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. “It would also be hard to argue, on any objective measure, that Canada’s banking system is anything other than an oligopoly,” Rogers told a blue-chip Toronto audience.