Financial institutions
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March 23, 2021
Supporting markets in tough times
Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle talks about actions the Bank of Canada took to make sure financial markets could work smoothly during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also discusses the Bank’s plans to discontinue some programs. -
Non-bank financial intermediation in Canada: a pulse check
The Canadian non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) sector saw strong growth in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, COVID‑19 caused a financial shock. We provide a preliminary analysis on the impact of COVID‑19 on the sector as well as an update on its growth. -
March 23, 2021
Market stress relief: the role of the Bank of Canada’s balance sheet
Deputy Governor Toni Gravelle discusses actions taken by the Bank of Canada to respond to market-wide stresses during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Bank’s role as lender of last resort in the financial system. -
Imperfect Banking Competition and Macroeconomic Volatility: A DSGE Framework
How do banks adjust their loan rate markup in response to macroeconomic shocks? -
Market Concentration and Uniform Pricing: Evidence from Bank Mergers
We show that US banks price deposits almost uniformly across their branches and that this pricing practice is more important than increases in local market concentration in explaining the deposit rate dynamics following bank mergers. -
Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in Canada and the United States
Although credit cards are more expensive for merchants to accept than cash or debit cards, merchants typically pass through their costs evenly to all customers. Along with consumer card rewards and banking fees, this creates cross-subsidies between payment methods. Because higher-income individuals tend to use credit cards more than those with lower incomes, our results indicate that these cross-subsidies might lead to regressive distributional effects. -
Estimating Policy Functions in Payments Systems Using Reinforcement Learning
We demonstrate the ability of reinforcement learning techniques to estimate the best-response functions of banks participating in high-value payments systems—a real-world strategic game of incomplete information.