 GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:16 | reply to R0CKY
Re: Do Bell and Rogers have too much control on Canada? One of the biggest competitors in the banking industry, at least here in Quebec, are the caisses populaires (co-op banks). Desjardins is probably the biggest one.
That'd be nice in the telecommunication industry... |
 DKSDamn Kidney StonesPremium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
kudos:2
 ·Bell Sympatico
| said by Guspaz:One of the biggest competitors in the banking industry, at least here in Quebec, are the caisses populaires (co-op banks). Desjardins is probably the biggest one. That'd be nice in the telecommunication industry... We had that a decade ago with the freenet ISP's. Many were bought out by commercial operations after a couple of years. Some still exist. There is also Telecommunities Canada.
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Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
jfmezeiPremium
join:2007-01-03
Pointe-Claire, QC
kudos:22 Reviews:
·ELECTRONICBOX
| reply to Guspaz
The major 6 do not compete against each other eacept on very large deals.
In the 1980s (not sure if it continued) they had a pre-set order of which bank would be first to announce increases in mortgage/lending rates. This was to ensure that overall, none of the 6 would be spared the bad PR that happens when they are the first to announce increase in rates.
In the past, outfits such as the Caisses Populaires (credit unions) and other non-banks were shut out of the national payment/clearing systems that was operated by the canadian bankers' association (since they were not chartered banks, they couldn't be members of the CBA). The Caisses had to hire one of the banks to clear its cheques for instance.
This was solved via government interventation which forced the CBA to spin off its payments operations into the Canadian Payments Association which was allowed to include non-banks as members. CPA is also in charge of maintaining the database of canadian bank and their branches and transit numbers. Interac was formed in a similar way. This left the CBA to be a secretariat for various committees where the 6 meet to exchange plans, strategies etc.
Intense lobbying happened in the 1990s during the bank act reforms (which lead to banks being able to buy brokerages, sell insurance and what not).
Yeah, if a company like Rogers needs to borrow 200 million, the big banks will bend over backwards to get the business. But for the retail business there is no real competiton since they all offer the same products with minor variations and different names.
Each Bank has also become like a BCE, with a gazillion separate subsidiaries. Credit card are now separate from banking, so is the stock brokerage, insurance etc. However, the branches are used to sell all those products.
Internally, there is competition. For instance, the respective departments that handle the connection to Interac compete on monthly uptime statistics to see which can have bragging rights on the highest uptime for the past month. |
