Here are the top reads on deals and financial services over the last week
FINANCIAL SERVICES NEWS
Bank of Canada boosts liquidity in effort to patch up cracks in financial system: Ottawa will allow uninsured mortgages to be bundled up by financial institutions and sold to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., in an attempt to free up room on bank balance sheets and encourage them to keep lending amid rising credit concerns. (Mark Rendell)
Banks, insurers win court OK to hold online annual meetings amid virus concerns: Canada’s biggest banks and insurance companies will hold their annual meetings online after jointly obtaining a court order amid intense concern about in-person gatherings. (Christine Dobby)
Provincial securities regulators give companies 45-day extension to file documents, financial statements: Investment funds and publicly listed companies that are struggling to respond to the economic fallout from the spread of COVID-19 have been given a 45-day extension to file financial documents by the country’s provincial securities regulators. (Greg McArthur)
As the coronavirus spreads, why are some mortgage rates rising:? Imagine you’re a bank fearful of borrowers not paying you back, potential housing devaluation and surging costs to fund your mortgages. The last thing you’d be thinking about is slashing your mortgage rates. You’d raise them. And that’s exactly what most mortgage lenders are doing. (Robert McLister)
Securities regulators warn about emerging stock frauds related to coronavirus: Investors should be leery of small, publicly listed companies claiming to have developed a vaccine, cure or method of detecting the coronavirus, Canada’s securities regulators warned Thursday in a joint statement. The Canadian Securities Administrators, the umbrella organization that represents the country’s provincial securities commissions, said in a statement that the coronavirus pandemic has attracted fraudsters looking to take advantage of the crisis and deceive investors. (Greg McArthur)
Toronto AI chatbot provider Ada Support raises $44-million as usage spikes during pandemic: Ada Support Inc., a Toronto artificial-intelligence startup that has become a go-to customer service “chatbot” provider for online companies has raised US$44-million led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel. The financing comes as Ada’s 100-plus clients deal with a quadrupling in customer inquiries through its chatbot software this month from February, Ada chief executive officer Mike Murchison said. “People are more at home right now” because of the pandemic. “As a result they tend to be using digital services more and customer service channels are experiencing higher volumes.” (Sean Silcoff)
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The radical ideas for keeping an economy afloat when businesses are barred from opening: The core of the challenge now in front of us is how to freeze a complex, intricate economy and preserve it in reasonable health for the time it takes to contain the novel coronavirus. A big problem is that nobody knows how long the deep-freeze will last. (Ian McGugan)
Stephen Poloz’s firm stand on interest rate cuts shows the Bank of Canada isn’t toeing the Fed’s line: As Stephen Poloz sat at a podium on Wednesday with Finance Minister Bill Morneau telling reporters about the massive support package that Ottawa unfurled to aid a distressed Canadian economy, perhaps the biggest surprise of the entire spectacle is something the Bank of Canada’s Governor didn’t say. (David Parkinson)
Get ready for deficits the likes of which we’ve never seen: Finance Minister Bill Morneau had only been speaking for a few minutes on Wednesday morning before he lost me. The $27-billion package of measures announced by Ottawa to address this coronavirus-induced downturn is as dizzyingly complicated as it is inadequate. (Konrad Yakabuski)
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