At the Big Six banks alone, Canadians have around 510,530 mortgages on payment deferral as of the quarter ending July 31, falling by 17.53% from the previous quarter.

Royal Bank of Canada accounted for the largest slice of the pie, with 138,830 payment deferrals (down 30.18% quarterly). This was followed by Toronto-Dominion Bank at 107,000 deferrals (down 15.08%), and then by Scotiabank at 99,000 deferrals (up 5.32%).

These postponed payments at the Big Six amounted to $136.27 billion, representing a 15.38% quarterly decline. RBC’s total stood at $41.27 billion (down 23.66% quarterly), while the second largest volume of mortgage deferrals was at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which had $33.3 billion (down 6.2%).

Bank of Montreal was the only one of the Big Six that saw its deferral volume increase, with $17.25 billion (up 0.52% quarterly).

The latest round of quarterly reports pointed to robust financial market conditions, for the most part.

A late August Reuters analysis indicated that RBC and National Bank, in particular, “comfortably beat” earlier estimates for their Q3 profits. This was mainly because the institutions were able to set aside approximately half of their provisions – which were $512.3 million and $109.2 million, respectively – for bad loans.

However, RBC executives said that the bank will be shoring up its resources for its downside scenario, which placed unemployment at roughly 10% until mid-2022, and prices at a “depressed” state until mid-2023. This is in response to the “increasing uncertainty about how the economy will perform through the fall,” Reuters reported.

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