by Kay Rivera
Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) generated a net income of $2.85bn for the quarter, up 17% from a year earlier, while RBC posted a strong growth of 9% to $2.98bn, according to The Canadian Press.
"Canadian retail had a banner quarter... We benefited from our number one share in core deposits, with rising rates driving further margin expansion," TD's chief executive Bharat Masrani said, as quoted in the report.
Supporting the healthy topline was the influx in net interest margins (NIM). TD's Canadian retail division's NIM was up 2.91%, a big jump from 2.81% from last year. Meanwhile, RBC's Canadian personal and commercial banking division had a NIM grew to 2.79% from 2.67% a year earlier.
Consequently, both banks recorded strong earnings at home due to steady mortgage growth over a cooling housing market in the wake of tighter regulations for uninsured mortgages introduced at the start of the year.
TD's Canadian retail division net income amounted to $1.83bn, a 17% jump compared to the previous year. RBC's Canadian personal and small business banking division posted a 7% increase in net income to $1.46bn.
TD also earned $269 billion secured lending portfolio at the end of the quarter, up 5% from $256bn a year earlier. RBC, on the other hand, generated $258bn in mortgages across Canada at the end of the quarter, up 5.1% from last year.
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