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This paper looks at the role mortgage brokers play in helping borrowers generate quotes and qualify for credit. We find that, on average, borrowers that engage with a mortgage broker pay lower interest rates. However, in about 15% of cases, borrowers are steered towards longer amortizing mortgages than they would have chosen absent a broker. Since mortgages with longer amortization have higher total interest costs over the entire life of the mortgage, this steering is expensive.

The Market Participants Survey (MPS) gathers financial market participants’ expectations for key macroeconomic and financial variables and for monetary policy. This staff analytical note describes the MPS’s objectives and main features, its process and design, and how Bank of Canada staff use the results.

This paper measures how both geographical and cultural proximity of bank branches affect household credit choice and pricing. For credit products that require high levels of ex-ante screening, we find that both proximities can complement each other in reducing the cost of providing soft information, thereby increasing credit access.

This paper explains the nature of interest rates in the U.S. federal funds market after the 2007-09 financial crisis. We build a model of the over-the-counter lending market that incorporates new aspects of the financial system: abundance of liquidity, different regulatory standards for banks, and arbitrage opportunities created by limited access to the facility granting interest on excess reserves.

Why do BigTech platforms introduce payment services? We explore this using a model in which a monopoly platform faces a trade-off between the costs associated with privacy concerns and the revenue from data services. We then analyze the feedback effects between data and payments.

We develop a principal-agent model of cyber-attacking with fee-paying clients who delegate security decisions to financial platforms. We derive testable implications about clients’ vulnerability to cyber attacks and about the fees charged.

This paper studies Canadians’ access to cash using the geographical distribution of automated banking machines (ABMs). During the pandemic, there have been no sustained adverse effects on cash accessibility.

We summarize the theoretical model of central bank asset purchases developed in Cimon and Walton (2022). The model helps us understand how asset purchases ease pressures on investment dealers to restore market conditions in a crisis.

We assess whether more central clearing would enhance the resilience of Canadian fixed-income markets. Our analysis estimates the potential benefits of balance sheet netting under scenarios where central clearing is expanded to new participants.

We study economies where firms acquire capital in primary markets then retrade it in secondary markets after information on idiosyncratic productivity arrives. Our secondary markets incorporate bilateral trade with search, bargaining and liquidity frictions.