Fears that new rules imposed by Canada’s banking watchdog could wreak havoc on the mortgage books of the big banks proved to be unfounded in the first quarter, with residential mortgage balances rising at all of the lenders save one.

BMO was the only bank among the country’s big five to see its mortgage balances decline quarter-over-quarter, and even then very modestly.

The new regulations force borrowers to prove they could carry their mortgage at a rate 200 basis points above the posted rate or at the Bank of Canada’s five year rate, whichever is higher.

Here’s what the banks had to say about their mortgage books in Q1:

 

RBC

Q4 Mortgage Balance Q1 Mortgage Balance
$231 billion $233 billion

“I would say with B-20, we’re only a month into it. It hasn’t really changed our outlook for the year from what we shared last quarter. So, we’re maintaining a view of mid-single digit growth for 2018.” – Neil McLaughlin, Group Head of Personal and Commercial Banking, RBC 

 

TD

Q4 Mortgage Balance Q1 Mortgage Balance
 $190.5 billion $190.6 billion 

 “I think we’re feeling very good about the growth of the portfolio overall, about our target of mid-single digit [growth.]” – Teri Currie, Group Head, Canadian Personal Banking, TD Bank

 

Scotiabank

Q4 Mortgage Balance Q1 Mortgage Balance
$206 billion  $208 billion 

"These results are based on strong underwriting and credit margin practices we have in place and we maintain consistent mortgage adjudication standards across all of our origination channels.” – Daniel Moore, Chief Risk Officer, Scotiabank

 

BMO

Q4 Mortgage Balance Q1 Mortgage Balance
$106.7 billion  $106.4 billion

"The metrics related to the Canadian residential mortgage portfolio remained stable this quarter. We continue to be very comfortable with this exposure.” – Surjit Rajpal, Chief Risk Officer, BMO 

 

CIBC

Q4 Mortgage Balance Q1 Mortgage Balance
$201 billion  $203 billion 

"It is really too early for us to comment on B-20, it just went into effect in January … So January itself is not a good indication alone. So, early days, we are not seeing any big change to customer behavior.” – Christina Kramer, Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking, Canada, CIBC