Bank of Canada System Review was released earlier. Some highlights:
- The Bank of Canada (BoC) expresses increased concerns about households’ ability to service debt due to higher borrowing costs compared to 2022.
- A rise in households facing financial pressure is anticipated in the coming years as mortgages are renewed.
- The recent decline in house prices has resulted in reduced homeowner equity, and early signs of financial stress, especially among recent homebuyers, have begun to emerge.
- A significant negative event, such as a harsh global recession with substantial unemployment, could further reduce house prices and lead to an increase in loan defaults among households.
- Large-scale defaults on uninsured mortgages with negative equity could potentially result in significant credit losses for Canadian lenders.
- The Bank maintains its concern over potential threats to financial stability from a significant cyber incident.
- Climate change is also recognized as posing significant risks to financial stability.
- Cryptoasset markets, however, do not presently pose a significant concern for the stability of the Canadian financial system.
- The Bank commits to continue closely monitoring the financial system for early indications of strain and confirms it has the tools to provide emergency liquidity to the financial system if severe stress were to occur.
Now BOC Macklem is speaking to the report and is also speaking on the economy:
- Expects inflation to continue coming down
- April is CPI data were stronger than expected, food price inflation much too high
- We are committed to getting inflation down to 2% target, number of things have to happen for that to occur
- Using conditional pause to see whether we’ve raised rates enough
- Far too early to be thinking of interest rate cuts
