The Canadian system is an oligopoly of five dominant banks.
If you are a dominant bank, there is no downside for serving clients badly.
Soon after came the failure of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, the dominant bank in the northernmost island of Hokkaido, where it had lent billions against resort developments.
The regional banks tend to have strong relationships with local companies, and are often the dominant bank in their home market.
The country's five dominant banks, including Toronto-Dominion, had moved into all aspects of financial services after regulatory changes over the years.
JPMorgan, for all its lingering mortgage issues, has emerged from the financial crisis as one of Wall Street's most dominant banks.
The bosses of the challenger banks said the annual marketing budget of just one of the dominant banks "is probably more than the sum of the annual profits of all the challenger banks".
GreenPoint has remained committed to its branch network over the years and has been successful at attracting New Yorkers' savings despite being far smaller than Chase and Citibank, the two dominant banks in the area.
Dime argued that combining the branches of Fleet, Dime and North Fork would create dominant banks in New Haven, with 35percentt of the market, and Suffolk County in New York, controlling 43percentt of the market, and, thus, violating Federal competition guidelines.
The older brother of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Mahmoud Karzai has major interests in the country's only cement factory, its dominant bank, its most ambitious real estate development, its only Toyota distributorship and four coal mines.
