The bank’s efforts have led to its assets roughly doubling in the last five years to some $54 billion.
Some small banks are doing better than others
The jumps in size at Wealthsimple and EQ are in contrast to some others smaller players like Laurentian Bank, which has seen its assets grow 7% to $47.5 billion in the same time.
Laurentian has been working on a turnaround including numerous executive shuffles, the selling off of business lines and other restructurings, but analysts are still skeptical of how much traction the bank can get even if it solves its operational issues.
“It’s not clear what Laurentian Bank’s structural advantage and competitive advantage will be at the end of all this,” said Vertias Corp. analyst Nigel D’Souza.
It’s not the only one struggling to see much growth. Manulife Bank has grown around 11% to $30 billion since 2019, and ATB Financial is up some 14% to $62 billion.
Canadian Western Bank was seeing higher growth, up 38% to $42.5 billion, but of course it’s being bought up. In the co-operative world, Desjardins has managed to grow around 43% to $444 billion, not too far behind National Bank, the smallest of the Big Six, at $454 billion.
Meanwhile RBC, the country’s largest publicly traded company, has about $2.08 trillion in assets.
The challenges small banks face
While some of the smaller banks are doing better than others, they all face the challenge of it being more expensive to raise money, in part through paying out those higher interest rates to attract deposits, said D’Souza. They also have to keep more capital on hand because they’re seen as less stable.