Mortgage relief pleas top 213,000 under plan

Canada’s Big Six banks eased way last week

Canada’s biggest banks have fielded hundreds of thousands of requests from homeowners seeking to hold off making mortgage payments under a new coronavirus-related relief plan.

More than 213,000 requests to defer or skip payments have been completed or are being processed since the country’s six largest banks announced the plan last week, Mathieu Labrèche, a spokesman for the Canadian Bankers Association, said Thursday.

“The large number of customers that have been helped continues to grow as the result of concerted efforts by front-line workers, contact-centre agents and operations teams working diligently,” he said.

Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and three other large lenders announced plans on March 17 to provide financial relief to Canadians impacted by the economic consequences of COVID-19, with mortgage

THE LARGE NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS ... CONTINUES TO GROW.

deferrals among the measures introduced. Customers in good standing who have been impacted by the pandemic can apply, with deferrals available for an indefinite period and no deadline to apply, according to the association.

Under the plan, payments are skipped for a period of time, and interest accrued is added to the mortgage’s outstanding balance. The additional interest is incorporated into future monthly payments when they resume, or upon renewal at the end of the mortgage’s term.

The six Canadian banks had about $1.06 trillion in mortgage balances at the end of January, representing nearly two-thirds of the country’s overall mortgage market, according to financial statements and Bank of Canada data. Canadian banks are reporting higher volumes of calls related to mortgages and other loans, along with requests for deferrals, since the plan was introduced.

“Last week, our contact centres in Canada received close to 80,000 calls per day, with calls to our mortgage and loan teams up 500%,” Scotiabank chief executive Brian Porter said March 22.

Toronto-Dominion is “receiving thousands of requests daily for mortgage deferrals, and have processed thousands already,” spokeswoman Julie Bellissimo said in an emailed statement. “We are moving quickly through applications so that we can help provide our customers some immediate financial relief.”