Comments on: BoC data: Canadian commercial credit crunch continuing

By: Tom Purves

Tom Purves — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:34:06 +0000

Damnit, so much for the miracle of googledocs. Those image links mysteriously stopped working. Try this: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t23jFIFC0fiNOtIyD_XdHlQ&single=true&gid=0&output=html

By: Basil

Basil — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:49:01 +0000

The banks are hording cash and starving out the non-bank competition while jacking up their yeilds accross the board. The banks are not interested in "helping out" even their best clients. This is a time to extract their "pound of flesh" from the ones still standing! Try as they may Small Medium Enterprise is frozen out of the credit game.

By: Tom Purves

Tom Purves — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:39:04 +0000

Is that data normalized? because the data above does look like a slow declining trend if you chart it as is:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0Aq2-vD_9vsXXdDIzakZJRkMwZmlOT3RJeURfWGRIbFE&oid=2&v=1262975678602

But if you normalize by number of actual days in the month (and non bank holidays) you get this:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0Aq2-vD_9vsXXdDIzakZJRkMwZmlOT3RJeURfWGRIbFE&oid=1&v=1262975723639

which shows a nice uptick from September through November.

By: Brad J.

Brad J. — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:01:14 +0000

Even so, lending is biased to the top names, and at lower LTVs. If secured lending advance rates were to drop from, say 80% to 70%, that could fully account for the decline even without shrinkage in the number of borrowers.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:48:56 +0000

Is it really a credit crunch, or rather companies shelving capex projects due to the slow economy?

i.e. a supply or demand problem?

Even though some players have left the market, I think Canadian banks are still willing to lend to healthy companies.