Canadian banks doing their job as Commercial lending rises 12% in a year

I’m sorry I took my eye off the ball, and for generally underperforming on the blogging front of late, but I have news on a topic we’ve been writing about for years: Canadian banks surpassed their peak lending level of December 2008 back in August 2012, according to Bank of Canada data. And the volumes have just continued to grow since then. Between May 2012 and May 2013, banks put out $22.6 billion of net new commercial and corporate loans — a 12% increase, year-over-year. The category is “Business loans to Canadian residents for business purposes”:

December 2008: $191.563 billion
January 2009: $185.679 billion
February: $183.759 billion
March: $184.089 billion
April: $181.811 billion
May: $178.691 billion
June: $176.365 billion
July: $174.664 billion
August: $173.818 billion
September: $171.152 billion
October: $171.091 billion
November: $168.425 billion
December: $169.430 billion

January 2010: $167.892 billion
February: $168.104 billion
March: $169.495 billion
April: $169.163 billion
May: $166.378 billion
June: $165.369 billion
July: $166.988 billion
August: $164.774 billion
September: $163.976 billion
October: $168.401 billion
November: $168.892 billion
December: $169.170 billion

January 2011: $170.42 billion
February: $171.800 billion
March: $174.028 billion
April: $175.198 billion
May: $173.974 billion
June: $176.527 billion
July: $177.574 billion
August: $177.654 billion
September: $176.856 billion
October: $178.214 billion
November: $176.705 billion
December: $180.526 billion

January 2012: $180.5 billion
February: $182.7 billion
March: $185.3 billion
April: $188.0 billion
May: $186.6 billion
June: $187.9 billion
July: $190.9 billion
August: $192.6 billion
September: $195.0 billion
October: $197.2 billion
November: $198.1 billion
December: $201.5 billion

January 2013: $200.9 billion
February: $204.8 billion
March: $209.1 billion
April: $210.0 billion
May: $209.2 billion

One can’t deny that business credit is flowing into the Canadian economy. And whether that’s the banks or the entrepreneurs having more confidence is hard to judge just from these figures. Our firm has seen a similar uptick in borrowing from Canadians CFOs, with four of our last ten transactions being for Canadian-based firms. A dramatic improvement from the mere two Canadian financings we closed in 2011; the action we saw in 2010 and 2011 was almost exclusively in the USA. Overall, things continue to be active in 2013 vis-a-vis capital deployment, after a healthy 2012 on the loan volume front (see prior post “2012 = $75 million committed, 12 new deals, 7 exits” Dec. 14-12).

Tomorrow, I’ll check in to see what the allegedly “countercyclical” lenders at the Business Development Bank of Canada have been up to during the same timeframe.

MRM