The Canadian banking industry is highly concentrated in terms of assets, and the market share for personal loans and deposits is also very concentrated. Most Canadians would like to see more government intervention in the banking sector. Canadians do not accept that competition in the banking sector is a rationale for government withdrawal from the sector. The general concerns about competition in the banking sector are particularly applicable to the area of service fees, since it is not clear that the fees currently being charged reflect competitive pricing. The greatest concern is the impact that service fees can have on low-income people.
Financial institutions collect a great deal of personal information about their customers.
Quicker, more efficient ways of collating and cross-referencing data are also being developed. The sheer amount of data that financial institutions possess, and the monetary value of this information, means that there is the potential for problems and abuse to occur. Consumer organizations are concerned about how personal information is used for marketing and creating files on customer behaviour patterns, and how it is shared among companies and credit bureaus. Financial institutions have opposed regulations on privacy in favour of a self-regulatory regime. Many observers of the financial sector argue that self-regulation is not adequate in the present context.