TD Bank Group was the only one of Canada’s five major banks to grow its business lending book between September 2008 and December 2009, the bank’s pacific region senior vice-president for commercial banking told Business in Vancouver.
“We grew our lending in B.C., in fact we grew it across Canada through the recession,” Jane Russell said, stating that the bank as a whole grew its business lending book by 4.8% for that period.
“In fact in B.C., we were the fastest-growing chartered bank over the last two years, as measured by [Canadian Bankers Association] stats,” she added, though she didn’t disclose the percentage by which the bank grew in the province.
Russell commented that the growth occurred despite clients’ fears of tightening credit.
“Our clients were concerned about whether the bank, from a lending point of view, would tighten or change any of the credit structures or financings that we had provided them,” she said.
But at TD, she said, that wasn’t the situation.
“From our perspective at TD, we didn’t change or tighten one lending policy throughout the entire recession,” she said.
Read next week’s edition of BIV for Russell’s explanation of why and how TD is looking to grow its commercial banking business in B.C.