The diverse nations of the Caribbean are in an enviable predicament. This is because the area's largest foreign-owned banks do not belong to ailing US or UK banks but to robust Canadian firms - specifically, the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Canada's most international bank; the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), North America's fifth largest bank; and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), another leading Canadian bank.
This is not to say that these Canadian banks have escaped from the international financial crisis unscathed. The profits of all three Canadian banking groups fell significantly in 2008 compared with 2007, mainly because of losses and higher provisions in the US banking market.
