Canada’s banking sector by the numbers

• Banks in Canada are major employers and essential contributors to the Canadian economy.
• Canada has one of the most accessible banking systems in the world – more than 99 per cent of Canadian adults have an account
  with a financial institution.

Banks in Canada have a longstanding and continuing record of supporting our country’s economy and investing in our
communities. Banks also play an important role in the household and business financing ecosystem. Here is a recap of
the sector’s contributions by the numbers:

Serving Canadians

Banks in Canada are major employers and essential contributors to the Canadian economy

Serving small businesses

• Banks serve close to 3 million
  self‑employed and small and medium‑sized businesses across Canada.
• Loan approval rates are high: close to 90.8 per cent of all SMEs that applied for a
  loan from a financial institution were approved.
• Banks authorized $1.78 trillion in credit to Canadian businesses as of December 2023. Of that, $286 billion went
  to small and medium-sized businesses.
• As of December 2023, banks authorized $86.5 billion in credit to the agriculture industry. Of this credit, the agriculture industry has drawn $61.5 billion
  and have close to $25 billion in unused credit available.

How Canadians bank

Cyber security and fraud prevention

• Banks are leaders in Canada in cyber security and have invested heavily in cyber security to protect the financial system and the personal
  information of their customers from cyber threats.
• Banks invest in technology to prevent billions of dollars of crime each year and to protect customers from online
  threats, credit and debit card fraud, identity theft, and mortgage and loan fraud.
• Amount six largest Canadian banks spent on
  technology in the last decade, including technology dedicated to security measures: approximately $120
  billion.
• Banks are making significant investments
  in financial technologies by financing or partnering with FinTech companies and other entities to
  develop innovate customer services and improve internal bank operations.

Addressing climate change

• Banks understand that the financial sector is central to securing an orderly transition to a low-carbon economy,
  mitigating the impacts of humans on the environment and ensuring the continued resilience of our country’s
  financial system.
• Banks in Canada have pledged to
  implement action plans that set specific targets to meet the demands of the global challenge of climate change
  including financial commitments totalling in the hundreds of billions.
• Canada’s six largest banks have joined
  the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a global initiative of banks worldwide committed to aligning their
  lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050.