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National security and rising inequality are two of the biggest risks today, said Canadian Bank leaders at a conference Tuesday.
“Economic warfare is how I would summarize what is happening in the world right now,” said Laurent Ferreira, CEO of National Bank, at the RBC CEO conference in Toronto.
“Geopolitics is upon us. National security is, I think, one of our country’s most important priorities.”
He said uncertainty was leading to investment hesitation and greater fragility in the labor market and consumer confidence. While he’s encouraged by the direction Ottawa is taking, he said everything needs to move faster.
“If we want to be part of the new world order, we must accelerate this process. »
Ferreira became the closest of the four CEOs who spoke in the morning to discuss the extraordinary actions of the United States capturing the president of Venezuela early Saturday. He said “the events of this weekend” should play a role in decision-making as Canada focuses on nation-building, reindustrialization and defence.
The new tone in The Canadian government and its emphasis on project delivery is welcome,” said Dave McKay, CEO of RBC.
“Given the geopolitical world we live in, the motivation, particularly for Canada, to achieve these things is really, really strong. »
He warned that growing inequalities is a key underlying cause of some of the political changes taking place, such as the richest 20 percent of employees are moving further and further away from the majority.
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“This growing differentiation and disparity is really driving the political agenda in both countries,” McKay said.
“This disparity is much larger and more serious in the United States and is a major policy problem, which will become a growing policy problem. »
For now, consumers are able to pay off debt and continue to spend, but that’s partly because Canadians have given up on buying a home, he said.
Money that Canadians would otherwise spend servicing housing debt is instead being spent on goods and services, McKay said.
He said low activity in pre-sales and condo construction is indeed weighing on the economy, but higher spending elsewhere has helped create jobs and stabilize employment in the country.
This trend, combined with a stabilization of tariffs, has helped the economy perform better than many expected.
“Economies are much more resilient today than I would have imagined three months ago,” said Darryl White, CEO of BMO.
He added that while many customers are adjusting well to the business environment, the bank advises its customers not to rely on quick resolution as formal review of issues. the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement approaching the middle of the year.
“To think that we’re going to all of a sudden wake up to a new deal in June or July, I think, is a bad assumption.”
In addition to macroeconomic trends, Canadian banks are also emphasizing the cost-reducing potential of artificial intelligence as a way to increase the key metric of return on equity.
CIBC CEO Harry Culham, who took office on Nov. 1, said the bank invests nearly 20 percent of its spending in technology, including AI systems, which is expected to lead to higher revenues and ROI in the future.
“We can do things more efficiently, so new technologies are going to help us, and how we adopt them will help us,” Culham said.
“Rather than hiring, let’s call it an extra three or four or five percent (full-time equivalent) a year; maybe we don’t need to do that anymore.”
TD Bank Group CEO Raymond Chun said the bank is leveraging AI and generally modernizing and automating systems.
He highlighted mortgage servicing, where arbitration, funding and discharge costs have already fallen by more than 20 percent.
“Over the next couple of quarters, you’ll see agentic AI added to each of these buckets,” Chun said.
“The offload component, as you overlay the agentic AI, and you actually do the whole process without involving people, we start from the $19 where we are today, and we can take another 50 percent off.”
He said the bank is also working to get more customers to do routine banking, like check deposits, via mobile devices rather than in branches, and similarly shift some of the more than two million calls it receives a month to its app.
But he said the bank was also recruiting wealth advisors, investment bankers and mortgage and investment specialists across its operations.
RBC’s McKay, who was named among the top three global banks for AI, said there are still many opportunities to use AI in the future.
“I’m really excited, and AI is just another wave of opportunities to create value for shareholders and for customers, ultimately.”
© 2026 The Canadian Press
