Overview

Message from the Commissioner

In Budget 2025, the Government of Canada requested that FCAC examine the structure, level and transparency of fees charged by Canadian banks. A Review of Banking Fees in Canada (Review) responds to that request and is an important part of how FCAC delivers on our mandate. The Review advances our mission to foster trust in Canada’s financial system by protecting financial consumers and empowering them to make informed decisions.

The Review provides a comprehensive assessment of common fees associated with personal bank accounts and related services. It considers differences in fees for comparable products and services, how clearly fee information is communicated, and how consumers experience these fees in practice. Its findings draw on industry data, consumer research, international experience and engagement with financial service providers and regulators.

The cost of banking is shaped not only by the level of individual fees, but also by the complexity of fee structures, consumers’ banking behaviour, and the choices available to them. Greater transparency, more personalized information and fewer barriers to switching could help consumers make better-informed choices and strengthen competition. The Review also identifies areas where further examination may be warranted to better understand the impact of banking fees on financial consumers and to inform future policy considerations.

As Canada’s financial marketplace continues to evolve, strong consumer protection must remain at the centre of that change. Through evidence-based research, data-driven insights and collaboration with partners, FCAC will continue to advance the interests of financial consumers and help shape a financial system that is safe, fair and strong for everyone.

Shereen Benzvy Miller
FCAC Commissioner

Executive summary

The true cost of banking is cumulative

The Review of Banking Fees in Canada (Review) highlights that the overall cost of banking for Canadians is driven by the cumulative effect of multiple fees that can interact, accumulate and, in some cases, compound within a single transaction. Canadians may pay fees across a range of everyday banking activities, including account maintenance, transactions, automated teller machine (ATM) access, non-sufficient funds, overdraft, foreign exchange and prepaid payment products. This raises an important question about whether certain consumers—particularly those with lower incomes, limited savings, or greater reliance on day-to-day banking services—may be disproportionately affected by these cumulative costs. While this Review does not assess differential impacts across consumer groups, the issue warrants further consideration.

A key finding of the Review is that current disclosure requirements do not always provide consumers with the information they need, when they need it, to make informed decisions. Existing requirements tend to focus on point-in-time information, such as fee schedules provided in account agreements for individual products or services, rather than a clear, consolidated view of the total fees they pay over time. As a result, consumers may not always have the information needed to make informed decisions or to compare alternatives effectively.

Consumers would benefit from increased transparency around automated teller machine fees, foreign exchange markups, cross-border debit transactions and prepaid payment products. ATM withdrawals can involve fees charged by multiple parties at different stages of a transaction, making it difficult for consumers to understand the total cost before completing a withdrawal. Foreign exchange markups and cross-border debit fees are often embedded in exchange rates or transaction amounts, limiting consumers’ ability to identify, understand and compare the true cost of these services. Prepaid payment products can also generate recurring or transaction-based fees that significantly reduce balances over time, while current disclosure requirements may not adequately support price transparency or informed decision-making.

The Review also finds that account choice and product usage can materially affect the total fees consumers pay. Consumers may incur higher costs when account features do not align with their actual banking needs, when they remain in legacy account plans that may no longer offer the best value, or when they use savings accounts for transactional purposes.

These findings point to the need for clearer, more personalized information that helps consumers understand how their own banking behaviour affects the fees they pay. Requiring federally regulated deposit-taking institutions to provide consumers with a standardized periodic statement—at least annually—summarizing cumulative fees paid on their personal deposit accounts would strengthen transparency and comparability.

Competition could be bolstered by reducing barriers to switching

Although a broad range of options are available in the market, not all consumers who could benefit from these are doing so. Fee structures are complex, and multi-product bundling can make it harder for consumers to identify the true price of individual products or compare bundled services with standalone alternatives. Consumers may also face direct and indirect costs when switching providers, including the time and effort required to move accounts, update pre-authorized payments and re-establish financial relationships. These barriers can discourage switching, reduce competitive pressure and weaken incentives for providers to compete on price and service.

Addressing barriers to switching would support more effective consumer choice and strengthen incentives for providers to compete on price and service

Consumer-driven banking has the potential to improve transparency and comparison shopping by giving consumers greater control over their financial data and enabling improved comparison tools. However, the Review suggests that the full benefits of consumer-driven banking will be limited unless consumers can also switch providers more easily.

Considering measures to facilitate switching alongside the implementation of consumer-driven banking could help realize these benefits. International experience, including reforms in the United Kingdom, provides additional context on approaches used to improve transparency, facilitate switching and promote competition.

Opportunities to improve consumer outcomes and competition

Prior to recent regulatory changes to cap non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees at $10 for federally regulated banks, these fees disproportionately affected financially vulnerable Canadians and exhibited characteristics commonly associated with limited competitive pressure on pricing. Similar concerns may exist for other fees, including cross-border debit fees, and may warrant further review.

About this report

Scope

This Review focuses on some of the most common fees that consumers may incur when using personal deposit accounts (e.g., chequing and savings accounts) and related services. These include account maintenance fees (also referred to as monthly fees), transaction-related fees, ATM fees, NSF fees, overdraft protection fees, and foreign currency conversion fees. In addition, the Review examines transfer-out fees for registered products, as well as fees associated with the use of prepaid payment products.

Fees associated with credit products, such as credit cards, mortgages, personal loans, or any business or commercial services, are not part of this Review.

The Review focuses on fees charged by domestic banks (Schedule I), foreign bank subsidiaries (Schedule II), federal credit unions, and companies incorporated under the Trust and Loan Companies Act. In this report, these financial institutions are collectively referred to as “banks,” unless specified otherwise.

The fees charged by provincially incorporated credit unions and other provincially regulated financial institutions, as well as financial technology firms (“fintechs”), are described where they provide alternatives to bank products and services. The key findings of this Review apply to Canadian banks.

Methodology

This Review describes the structure and level of some of the most common fees that Canadian consumers may incur when using personal deposit accounts and related services. It focuses on the fees themselves and points to differences in fees for comparable, although not identical, products and services. FCAC recognizes that fees are only one of the factors that consumers consider when choosing financial products and services, or financial service providers.

The Review also examined the transparency of fees. That is, the clear and timely communication of information that is accessible in a manner that enables consumers to make informed decisions.

To conduct this work, FCAC:

• reviewed the relevant parts of banks’ fee schedules and account agreements that relate to the fees examined, relying on this information as the main source of fee levels and key terms and conditions for the related services, and to assess how information is communicated to consumers
• collected data from banks on account volumes, deposit values, transaction volumes by transaction type, fee revenues, and the number of accounts that were charged fees for the years 2023 to 2025
• examined practices in other jurisdictions to provide context on the structure, level and transparency of select fees
• used survey data from Ipsos Canadian Financial Monitor (CFM) and Ipsos Switch to better understand consumers’ account usage, product selection and switching behaviour
• conducted a series of consumer focus groups to assess how consumers experience banking fees in practice
• engaged with financial service providers operating in Canada, as well as with provincial and federal financial services regulators

Limitations

The Review is based on aggregated, industry-level data provided by all federally regulated deposit-taking institutions, supplemented by information obtained through engagement with other financial service providers and from publicly available sources. This information was used to illustrate differences in the fees associated with selected products and does not constitute an exhaustive assessment of these market segments. Comparisons are therefore limited to the fees examined and should not be interpreted as comprehensive comparisons of providers or their overall value propositions.

While these sources provided important insights into banking fees in Canada, more granular data on product features, fee structures and consumer usage patterns would enable a deeper understanding of the fees Canadians pay and their impacts. To further assess differences across products, institutions and consumer segments, FCAC may seek product-level information from banks in the future. Such data could support more detailed analysis of consumer outcomes and help identify emerging issues that may warrant closer examination.

About FCAC

FCAC plays a key role in financial consumer protection by supervising federally regulated entities, educating financial consumers about their rights and responsibilities, and strengthening financial literacy among Canadians. It derives its mandate from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act (FCAC Act) and reports to Parliament through the Minister of Finance.

The FCAC Act sets out objectives for the Agency, including:

• to supervise regulated entities and determine whether they are complying with legislative obligations, codes of conduct, and public commitments that are overseen by FCAC
• to promote the adoption by regulated entities of policies and procedures designed to implement their market conduct obligations
• to monitor and evaluate trends and emerging issues that may have an impact on financial consumers, and to collaborate with other government agencies, regulators, and stakeholders to promote understanding among Canadians of financial services and related issues

FCAC oversees compliance with consumer protection rules under several laws, including the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act, the Trust and Loan Companies Act, and the Payment Card Networks Act. FCAC also oversees compliance with codes of conduct and commitments, such as the Code of Conduct for the Payment Card Industry in Canada and the Commitment on Low-Cost and No-Cost Accounts.

FCAC supervises:

• the market conduct of federally regulated financial institutions, including banks, federal credit unions, insurance companies, and trust and loan companies
• payment card network operators, which set standards for payment transactions
• the designated external complaints body under the Bank Act, which handles unresolved consumer complaints about banking products and services