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Section J: Banking and Finance
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John Chant, Carleton University
The Supply of Money (Series J1-54)
Central Banking (Series J55-74)
Chartered Banking (Series J75-272)
Other Financial Institutions (Series J273-470)
Bond and Stock Yields, Net New Issues of Securities and Foreign Exchange Rates (Series J471-567)
Year-end Financial Assets and Liabilities According to the Financial Flow Accounts (Series J568-875)
The data of this section are presented in six groups as follows: the supply of money, series J1-54; central banking, series J55-74; chartered banking, series J75-272; other financial institutions, series J273-470; issues of stocks and bonds, yields and exchange rates, series J471-567; and year-end financial assets and liabilities according to the financial flow accounts, series J568-875.
The main sources of data, in addition to those mentioned in the first edition of this volume, are as follows. Bank of Canada Review, monthly, December 1971 to September 1978. (All table numbers cited below are those appearing in the September 1978 issue of the Review.) Bank of Canada, Statistical Summary (last issue November, 1971) and its annual Supplement. Statistics Canada, Financial Institutions, (Catalogue 61-006), Statistics Canada, Financial Flow Accounts, Volume II, Annual Flows and Year-end Financial Assets and Liabilities, 1961-1976, (Catalogue 13-563); Toronto Stock Exchange, Review, December, 1977 and earlier issues; Master of the Mint, Annual Reports of the Royal Canadian Mint.
Additional sources are mentioned in the notes to individual tables below. Most important of these is a large number of special tabulations provided by the Bank of Canada, Department of Banking and Financial Analysis, and by Statistics Canada, Business Finance Division and Financial Flows and Multinational Enterprises Division.
The main purpose of the present volume, like its predecessor, is to provide long annual series for purposes of historical and trend analysis as opposed to analysis of current events. As a result, annual averages of month-end series are typically used rather than the weekly series (average of Wednesdays) presented by the Bank of Canada. However, both weekly and month-end series are given in certain cases such as money supply and chartered bank assets and liabilities, because the classifications available differ between weekly and monthly data and it was felt useful to present both.
This volume contains a number of new series which have become available since 1960, the close-off date of the first edition. For the area of banking, the 1967 revision of the Bank Act was responsible for a number of improvements in availability of data. Nevertheless, some of the newer classifications are too detailed to put into the present volume, for reasons of space. Thus neither the chartered banks' general loans by class of borrower, by size and by industry nor the more recent loan data on a provincial basis have been included. On the liability side, deposits by size and other, newer classifications also have not been included. Most important, an annual set of data such as the present one cannot hope to do justice to the data on various reserve ratios. Much of the central bank's work is conducted on a daily and weekly basis and is reflected in weekly statistics. Annual averages of such data would not be very useful and they are accordingly omitted below. Users of such data are better served by the weekly and monthly publications of the Bank of Canada in any case.
The tables are available as comma separated value files (csv). They may be viewed using a variety of software. You may have to create an association between your software application and the csv files. The pdf files should be used to verify table formats. For example, footnotes appear in a column to the right of the cell they reference in the csv files; while in the pdf files footnotes appear as superscript numbers.
The Supply of Money (Series J1-54)
General note
The first edition included a number of series in an attempt to compile information on the supply of money and on Canada's coinage. Since that time, much more attention has been directed to various concepts of money supply for analytical purposes. Any definition of money necessarily involves a degree of arbitrary judgment. For purposes of continuity, it has been decided to present, as in the first edition, a series of money defined as chartered bank deposits and notes and coin held outside the chartered banks. In addition, rather than presenting just a single concept of the money supply, it seemed useful to present a variety of different money supply series over recent years, according to their availability. See series J21-26 below.
Table J1-10
Currency and chartered bank deposits, 1913 to 1977
Source: this table is an update of series Hl-10 in the first edition. The data since 1960 are from the Bank of Canada Review, tables 3, 8 and 14.
Footnote 2 to series J4-7 refers to changes in definition of chartered bank deposits between 1935 and 1945 and in 1957. The original text, page 233, explains that the series contained foreign currency deposits in certain years and that 'other deposits' were obtained residually, by subtracting personal savings and Government of Canada deposits from total deposits less float. The original text states that 'further statistical refinements in the treatment of float and in reporting foreign currency deposits were made in 1954. Series H4-7 and series H10 for the years 1945 to 1960 reflect these changes and, as far as the estimates permit, are consistent over those years. The exception to this is series H4 which was revised in 1957 to exclude certain business and institutional deposits which, amounting to $140 million, were transferred to series H6 at that time'.
Table J11-20
Notes and coin held by banks and general public and chartered bank Canadian deposit liabilities, 1913 to 1977
Source: see the first edition, page 223. The updates of the series described in the first edition were provided by the Department of Banking and Financial Analysis, Bank of Canada.
The first edition stated that these series were of inferior quality, but were included because they extended back to 1867. In the present edition, the series have been cut off at 1913 in order to save space. Series J20 differs from series J7 only in that the former includes float.
Table J21-26
Monetary aggregates, 1946 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 14. The table includes the set of measures provided at the present time by the Bank of Canada. Measures which may be viewed by some to be useful undoubtedly have been omitted. Moreover prevailing views may change over time with respect to the most useful measures of the money supply. Nevertheless the variety of measures presented by the bank provides a good representation of the different measures that may be used.
In describing these series, the Bank of Canada states that currency and chartered bank deposits have been combined in this table to show alternative measures of the monetary aggregates. All the series are net of float. Government of Canada deposits with the chartered banks are excluded from all the series. The data relate to averages of Wednesdays and to Wednesdays except for the series on coin held outside banks, which relates to the end of month figure for the previous month. Data for 'M1' and for currency and total Canadian dollar privately held bank deposits of residents are available on a weekly basis from January 1953, for 'M1B' from January 1967, for 'M2' from January 1968 and for 'M3' from January 1970.
'Currency outside banks' comprises Bank of Canada notes and coin in circulation. Holdings of notes are calculated by subtracting the amount held by the chartered banks from the total amount of notes outstanding. The amount of coin in circulation outside banks is obtained by subtracting coin held by the chartered banks and the Bank of Canada from the total amount outstanding as reported by the Royal Canadian Mint.
'Demand deposits' and the demand deposit component in each of the series are Canadian dollar deposits at chartered banks, net of estimated private sector float.
'M1' includes currency outside banks and demand deposits.
'M1B' includes currency outside banks, demand deposits, personal and non-personal chequable Canadian dollar deposits at chartered banks.
'M2' includes in addition to 'M1B', Canadian dollar personal non-chequable and fixed term deposits, and non-personal non-chequable notice deposits at chartered banks.
'M3' includes in addition to 'M2', Canadian dollar non-personal fixed term deposits and bearer term notes plus all foreign currency deposits of Canadian residents booked at chartered banks in Canada.
'Currency plus total Canadian dollar privately held bank deposits' corresponds to the series previously defined as currency and privately held deposits. It differs from 'M3' by the exclusion of foreign currency deposits of Canadian residents booked at chartered banks in Canada.
Table J27-32
Canadian coin minted, 1913 to 1976
Source: Royal Canadian Mint, Annual Reports.
The first edition (series H21-26) contains the same series back to 1870. These series have simply been updated in the present edition.
Table J33-41
Gold received and coinage issued by the mint, 1913 to 1976
Source: same as series J27-32.
See notes to series H27-35 in the first edition, where these series were extended back to 1901. The original series have simply been updated in the present edition.
Table J42-54
Canadian coin in circulation, coin withdrawn and net increase in circulation, 1960 to 1976
Source: Same as series J27-32.
This is a new table, designed to show the coin in circulation, coin withdrawn and net increase in circulation. There is of course a substantial disappearance of coinage due to destruction, loss or other causes, in addition to that which is withdrawn officially.
Central Banking (Series J55-74)
Data on the Bank of Canada are available on a month-end basis from the commencement of operations in March 1935 and on a weekly basis from 1954. In keeping with the purpose as stated in the introduction, only the month-end data are presented here. The month-end data, in addition, have the advantage of a more useful breakdown of the maturities of government securities held by the bank. Bank of Canada profits are published in the Annual Report of the Governor to the Minister of Finance.
Table J55-74
Bank of Canada, assets and liabilities, 1935 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 3. These are month-end series as at the end of December each year from 1935, the first year of the bank's operation, to 1977. The definitions of the individual series are given in the notes to table 3, at page S-139 of the Review (September, 1978).
For those wishing to use the weekly series (average of Wednesdays), which commenced in 1954, these data are available in table 4 of the Review.
Chartered Banking (Series J75-272)
The initial volume of Historical Statistics of Canada introduces chartered banking as follows:
"The statistical record of chartered banking in Canada has been shaped materially by the decennial revision of the Bank Act. This periodic revision permitted the authorities to request statistical information of the banks on specific areas of interest at various times in banking history; it permitted the trend toward more detailed banking statistics to proceed relatively smoothly; and it permitted banking statistics to be classified in a way which improved their usefulness in economic analysis. But as a consequence of these frequent changes it is difficult to construct consistent series of banking statistics over a long period of time. This is particularly the case with statistics of bank assets, and somewhat less so with those of bank liabilities and explains the decision made to show bank assets in a number of tables, each table reflecting changes in certain asset components from the table which preceded it.
Most of the statistics for the period preceding 1929 were compiled from C.A. Curtis, Statistical Contribution to Canadian Economic History, vol. I, 'Statistics of Banking', which volume remains the most comprehensive and convenient source of detailed banking statistics for that period. Readers are also referred to that volume for detailed discussion of historical banking statistics in general, and of particular series as well, full details of which cannot be given here. In addition the monthly return of the banks to the Department of Finance, appearing in the Canada Gazette, was frequently resorted to; it constitutes the primary source of statistics for the Curtis volume. Since 1935 the Bank of Canada, Statistical Summary and Supplements, have proved most helpful for this study; in addition, they show weekly and monthly statistics of chartered bank assets and liabilities."
The data supplied in the Statistical Summary, together with many new series, are mentioned in the Bank of Canada Review.
We show both (a) the monthly series back to 1913 and (b) the weekly series back to 1953. Both series are included primarily because of differences in the categories presented.
Table J75-106a
Chartered bank assets, 1945 to 1977
Table J75-106b
Chartered bank assets, 1945 to 1977 CONCLUDED
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 7 and first edition of this volume, p. 225.
This is the month-end series for December of each year. Definitions of individual series are given in the notes to tables 5 to 8 in the Review (p. S-139). These notes cover both weekly and monthly classifications of the data which appear in the following group of tables on chartered bank assets and liabilities.
Following the 1967 revision of the Bank Act, the chartered banks began recording, as at the end of each financial year, accumulated appropriation for losses on the liability side of the balance sheet rather than on the asset side as deductions from loans and other assets. This change affected the series from 31 October 1967. In January 1970 a change was made in the classification of chartered banks holdings of short-term paper. Previously, a bank's holding of short-term paper issued by customers with established lines of credit were classified as loans. Short-term paper is now classified as a loan only if it is purchased directly from an issuer at time of issue. Paper purchased from third parties subsequent to issue is now classified as a security. In December 1970 foreign assets were redefined to include chartered banks holdings of foreign pay securities issued by Canadian borrowers; previously these securities had been included with Canadian securities. In addition, investments by the banks in controlled corporations abroad were included with foreign assets. The items affected have been revised back to August 1967. Thus a break in series occurs here.
J107-132, J133-156 and J157-180. Chartered bank assets, 1913 to 1944
Table J107-132
Chartered bank assets, 1934 to 1944
Table J133-156
Chartered bank assets, 1923 to 1933
Table J157-180
Chartered bank assets, 1913 to 1922
It was necessary to divide the time period 1913 to 1944 into three parts because the classification of assets changed from period to period. In contrast, the liabilities which follow have a classification which is continuous from 1913 to 1977.
Table J181-201
Chartered bank liabilities and cash ratio, 1913 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 8, and first edition of this volume, p. 226.
As noted above, this is the chartered bank monthly series. The weekly series are given below.
Table J202-228a
Chartered bank assets, weekly series, 1953 to 1977
Table J202-228b
Chartered bank assets, weekly series, 1953 to 1977 CONCLUDED
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 5.
These data are averages of Wednesdays in December of each year. The classifications are identical to those given in the Review.
Table J229-250a
Chartered bank liabilities, weekly series, 1946 to 1977
Table J229-250b
Chartered bank liabilities, weekly series, 1946 to 1977 CONCLUDED
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 6.
See notes above.
Table J251-260
Chartered banks, total foreign currency assets and liabilities, 1946 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 15.
These are month-end series for December of each year. They are required to complement the above tables on the monthly series on money supply and chartered bank assets and liabilities.
Table J261-272
Chartered banks earnings, net income, taxes and dividends, 1929 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table A4, published annually in February issue of the Review.
Other Financial Institutions (Series J273-470)
Table J273-309a
Trust companies, 1961 to 1976 (ASSETS)
Table J273-309b
Trust companies, 1961 to 1976 (LIABILITIES)
Source: Statistics Canada, Financial Institutions, (Catalogue 61-006), quarterly, and special tabulations provided by the Business Finance Division, Statistics Canada.
Complete notes on definitions, sources and methods are provided in the introduction to the above publication. These are new series beginning in 1961. The older data from 1914 to 1959 are given in series H503-648 in the first edition of this volume. The classifications used in the older series are quite different from those now in use.
Table J310-350a
Mortgage companies, 1963 to 1976 (ASSETS)
Table J310-350b
Mortgage companies, 1963 to 1976 (LIABILITIES)
Source: same as series J273-309.
Table J351-368
Local credit unions, 1967 to 1976
Source: same as series J273-309.
Table J369-384
Central credit unions, 1967 to 1976
Source: same as series J273-309.
Table J385-408
Sales finance and consumer loan companies, 1960 to 1976
Source: same as series J273-309.
Table J409-427
Investment funds, 1963 to 1976
Source: same as series J273-309.
Table J428-446
Life insurance, 1959 to 1976
Source: special tabulations prepared in Business Finance Division, Statistics Canada.
These series were assembled from the annual reports of the federal Department of Insurance which covered all federally registered companies and societies and from the annual reports of the Superintendent of Insurance for Ontario which provided data for all large provincial companies and societies. This approach means that some provincial companies and societies which do not operate in Ontario were missed, but this omission should not have a significant impact on the figures. In the case of the federal companies, Financial Flow Accounts, Volume II, was used. While this book splits out the out-of-Canada asset data, it does not provide any out-of-Canada data on liabilities; however, reference to the quarterly survey for 1976 and 1977 shows that out-of-Canada liabilities are just under 90 per cent of out-of-Canada assets. The out-of-Canada business of provincial companies is small and since it was not readily available, it was ignored.
In respect of share capital and contributed surplus, the share capital only was available from federal companies, contributed surplus was not shown. In the summary reports on provincial companies no share capital and contributed surplus data were available. Consequently, share capital, contributed surplus, retained earnings and head office accounts (of British and foreign companies and societies) have been combined under the term 'Equity'.
A number of series on Canadian, British and foreign life insurance companies, from 1888 to 1959, are given in the first edition of this volume (series H373-408).
Table J447-470
Property and casualty insurance companies, 1966 to 1976
Source: same as series J273-309.
Bond and Stock Yields, Net New Issues of Securities and Foreign Exchange Rates (Series J471-567)
Table J471-480
Bond and stock yields, annual averages, 1934 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 20 (for bond yields), table 37 (for stock dividend yields).
See also the footnotes to series J471-480.
Table J481-494
Indexes of common stock prices, 1914 to 1977
Source: Toronto Stock Exchange, Monthly Reports, December, 1935 to December 1977, and TSE 300 Index of Stock Prices and Supplements.
The classification from 1956 to 1977 contains more groups than that from 1914 to 1956. Hence the table is shown in two parts. The data in the older part are simply reproduced from the first edition of this volume. See also the footnotes to series J481-494.
Table J495-518a
Gross and net new issues of securities, 1936 to 1976
Table J495-518b
Gross and net new issues of securities, 1936 to 1976 CONCLUDED
Source: Bank of Canada Review, tables 29 and 30, from 1970 to 1978. Earlier data from Bank of Canada Statistical Summary and its former annual Supplement.
Table J519-534
Summary of total bonds outstanding, 1935 to 1976
Source: Bank of Canada, Department of Banking and Financial Analysis.
Table J535-551
Summary of total bonds outstanding, 1935 to 1976
Source: same as series J519-534.
Table J552-559
Net new security issues payable in foreign currencies, 1936 to 1977
Source: same as series J519-534.
Table J560-567
Foreign exchange rates, 1913 to 1977
Source: Bank of Canada Review, table 65.
These are annual averages of daily noon spot rates on the inter-bank market. British currency exchange rate is based on nominal quotations in terms of U.S. dollars converted to Canadian dollars.
Year-end Financial Assets and Liabilities According to the Financial Flow Accounts (Series J568-875)
The tables which follow are taken from Statistics Canada, Financial Flow Accounts, Volume II, 1961-1976, (Catalogue 13-563). There are two tables for each sector, the year-end outstandings and the financial flows during the year. The flows are not the exact difference between any two adjacent year-end outstandings because of revaluations of assets, adjustments of liabilities, changes in corporate structure and other causes. However, both sets of data come from the same basic questionnaires of the Financial Flows Division. Explanatory notes may be found in the introduction to the above publication, and in an article in the Canadian Statistical Review, July 1976.
Both the sectors and the categories have been condensed herein to show the main headings only. The sectors are as follows: I and II: Persons and unincorporated business; III: Non-financial private corporations; IV: Non-financial government enterprises; V: The monetary authorities; VI: Banks and near-banks; VII: Insurance companies and pension funds; VIII: Other private financial institutions; IX: Public financial institutions; X: Federal government; XI: Provincial and local governments and hospitals; XII: Social security funds; and XIII: Rest of the world.
The main categories of assets and liabilities will be found in the column headings of the tables and are broadly similar from sector to sector.
The relationship between the national accounts figures on saving and non-financial investment and the flow-of-funds data on changes in financial assets and liabilities is shown in the first four columns of each flow table. The 'statistical discrepancy' between the above two sets of data is shown in the fifth column of each flow table.
Sector I & II: Persons and unincorporated business
Table J568-579
Year-End Outstanding
Table J580-595
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector III: Non-financial private corporations
Table J596-607
Year-End Outstanding
Table J608-623
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector IV: Non-financial government enterprises
Table J624-635
Year-End Outstanding
Table J636-651
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector V: The monetary authorities
Table J652-661
Year-End Outstanding
Table J662-675
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector VI: Banks and near-banks
Table J676-687
Year-End Outstanding
Table J688-703
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector VII: Insurance companies and pension funds
Table J704-715
Year-End Outstanding
Table J716-730
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector VIII: Other private financial institutions
Table J731-742
Year-End Outstanding
Table J743-758
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector IX: Public financial institutions
Table J759-770
Year-End Outstanding
Table J771-786
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector X: Federal government
Table J787-799
Year-End Outstanding
Table J800-815
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector XI: Provincial and local governments and hospitals
Table J816-826
Year-End Outstanding
Table J827-842
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector XII: Social security funds
Table J843-845
Year-End Outstanding
Table J846-851
Financial Flows During the Year
Sector XIII: Rest of the world
Table J852-862
Year-End Outstanding
Table J863-875
Financial Flows During the Year
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