Equitable Bank CEO cautiously optimistic as interest rates and immigration levels drop
It was a year of many firsts for Equitable Bank (EQB), Canada’s seventh-largest lender in terms of assets: it was the bank’s most profitable year on record, with annual revenue surpassing $1 billion for the first time, and it tapped celebrities, sitcom Schitt’s Creek actors Dan and Eugene Levy, for the first time to promote its services.
Those are a couple of obvious highlights for a bank that is trying to make its way in a sector heavily dominated by the Big Six.
Chief executive Andrew Moor spoke to the Financial Post about Equitable’s performance in 2024, his outlook for 2025 and how Canada’s biggest banks need to be more welcoming of open banking, which the federal government further committed to implementing in its fall economic statement.
Andrew Moor: This was the year that we really brought our brands, our consumer-facing brand, to the fore. Using Dan and Eugene Levy to promote EQ Bank, our digital platform, really has cemented us as a leading digital banking platform in Canada. We have great infrastructure under the hood, but having these sorts of iconic spokespeople for us has really elevated how people understand us.
And then we’re seeing a really good lift in people becoming customers of EQ Bank and we now have over half a million customers, more than $9 billion in deposits and we continue to bring innovation to the market. It’s the first time we have had revenue over $1 billion. That’s a mark of some success. It’s just a number, but it’s still a pretty big number.
AM: Yeah, so this is mostly long-haul transportation — trucks and trailers. That industry has gone through a bit of a tough period. In COVID, it was in very, very high demand. And then there’s been a bit of a kind of recession going on in long-haul
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