While the foregoing is true for any corporate, as far as banks are concerned, since they are highly leveraged institutions dealing with public money and public confidence, there is a greater responsibility for value creation. As a result, non-financial reporting will be extremely important for financial institutions such as banks and its relevance is only going to increase in times to come.
Years of low interest rates have, by design, encouraged growth in household credit, leaving many highly indebted. In Canada, average household debt is around 165 per cent of disposable income.