Canadian banks face C$152b bill for 2008 crisis they avoided

Toronto

CANADIAN banks are starting to get their share of the bill for global regulations designed to prevent a repeat of the taxpayer funded bailouts of the 2008 financial crisis.

Over the next five years the nation's six largest banks will need to convert C$152 billion (S$162 billion) of capital into securities that can be used as a shock absorber during a crisis, according to estimates from Royal Bank of Canada. That pales in comparison with the US$1.2 trillion tab the world's biggest lenders face, but the Canadians are unusual in that they never needed rescuing in the first place.

While RBC predicts much of the capital, which is designed to shift risk to investors from taxpayers, can be met simply by replacing maturing debt with the new types of securities, the market is signalling that banks …