Desjardins Group is an outlier among Canada’s largest banks. While the country’s top names have a typical banking structure and capital that belongs to shareholders, as a federation of credit unions, Desjardins is ultimately owned by its customers.
It is also the lender that has expanded the most in 2019, both in terms of Tier 1 capital and assets and, in particular, in terms of pre-tax profits: a 17.85% jump compared to the other five banks’ small percentage changes, hovering just above or a few digits below zero.