The Bank of Nova Scotia

Ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded.

Good morning, and welcome to Scotiabank's Q3 26 results presentation. My name is Meny Grauman, and I'm head of investor relations here at the bank. Presenting to you this morning are Scott Thomson, Scotiabank's president and chief executive officer, Raj Viswanathan, our chief financial officer, and Shannon McGinnis, our chief risk officer. Following our comments, we'll be glad to take your questions. Also present to take questions are the following Scotiabank executives. Aris Bogdanaris from Canadian Banking, Jackie Allard from Global Wealth Management, Francisco Aristeguieta from International Banking, and Travis Machen from Global Banking and Markets. Before we start, and on behalf of those speaking today, I will refer you to slide two of our presentation, which contains Scotiabank's caution regarding forward-looking statements. With that, I will now turn the call over to Scott.

Thank you, Meny, and good morning, everyone. Q3 was a record quarter for the bank as we reported strong earnings across all business lines and exceeded all of our median term objectives. We are particularly proud of the fact that we demonstrated our ability to hit our 14% plus return on equity target sooner than we had projected. This achievement was aided by strong markets, but is also the product of strategic repositioning and improved capital allocation that have led to sustainable improvements across the bank. It continues to be driven by our Canadian banking segment whose return on equity improved 160 basis points sequentially and hit 19.4% this quarter. We expect to continue to improve the return on equity and close the gap with peers through a steady improvement in our business mix, fee income growth, and ongoing productivity gains. We are delivering on our strategic priorities, and although you should expect to see some quarter-to-quarter variability, We don't see 14% return on equity as a ceiling for the bank. This quarter, the bank reported record earnings per share of $2.28, up 21% year over year. We also delivered all bank positive operating leverage for the 10th consecutive quarter, while our SETI-1 ratio ended the quarter at 13.1% after deploying 23 basis points to organic growth and repurchasing an additional 8.6 million shares in the quarter. Over the past 12 months, we have now returned $8.3 billion in capital to our shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. Our capital deployment priorities continue to be organic growth followed by share buybacks and strategic tuck-in acquisitions that fill a well-defined need. The bank remains focused on deploying accumulated capital in support of Canada's economy, including helping fund areas of national importance such as natural resources, critical infrastructure, AI, and Defence. And we expect to do all of this while maintaining strong capital ratios. While the trade relationship between Canada and the US is evolving, ever since tariffs were imposed last year, the Canadian economy has proven to be much more resilient than expected. We will continue to monitor developments while supporting our clients and focusing on our strategic priorities. Our business mix continues to evolve across our footprint as loan growth improves in higher returning portfolios and we gather higher quality deposits. In Canadian banking, commercial loans grew 3% sequentially in Q3 after growing 2% in Q2. Looking ahead, we expect growth to continue to improve supported by investments we are making in verticals where we've been historically under-penetrated, including the mid-market and small business lending. where loan growth was up 3% quarter over quarter and 10% year over year. Credit card balances were up 3% quarter over quarter and we continue to expect that to further improve by the end of the year, helped by growing purchase volumes which are underscoring the improving quality of our book. The premium mix of new card acquisitions is now at 45% versus 35% last year. On the deposit side, we've been able to retain over 90% of retail GIC maturities year-to-date. These flows are either staying in Canadian banking, where personal day-to-day and savings deposits grew 1% year-over-year, or are moving into retail mutual funds, where net sales are $4 billion year-to-date, up nearly 2.5 times from last year. Record revenue in Canadian banking was helped by the fifth consecutive quarter of margin expansion and continued strong fee income growth, as we maintain our focus on growing retail mutual fund, credit card, and insurance revenues. At the same time, credit trends are improving thanks in part to better collection efforts and we are managing expenses very effectively even as we continue to make substantial investments in frontline sales capacity and technology. We are also seeing improving business mix in our international banking segment where retail loans grew by approximately 5% year over year. This growth rate should continue to improve even as growth in our non-retail loan book will remain restrained by design as we continue to optimize our allocation of capital to focus on primary relationships. Our focus on deposits in the region is also working with Q3 deposits up 1% quarter over quarter and 6% year over year. As a result, earnings remained above the $700 million mark for the third consecutive quarter, led by strong revenue growth of 7% year-over-year. The strategy remains focused on deepening client penetration while further driving efficiencies. Pre-tax, pre-provision earnings in our international, global banking and markets business were up 13% year-over-year, helped by our capital markets platform, where we're increasingly focused on delivering capital light and many more. In global wealth management, we are continuing to drive connectivity with the rest of the bank and investing in both our full-service advice and discount brokerage businesses. Net sales for the quarter came in at $3 billion, a record Q3 up 14% versus Q3 2025 and marking our eighth consecutive quarter of positive net flows. Our net sales for the year to date are now higher than full year fiscal 2025. Total closed referrals between Canadian banking and Canadian wealth management came in at $14 billion year to date, and more specifically, closed referrals between commercial banking and wealth were $4.5 billion, or 33% higher than what we reported for the same period last year. In our global asset management business, we rank third among our bank-owned peers in long-term retail mutual fund sales, up from fifth in the same quarter last year and sixth at Investor Day. And in our international wealth business, we are continuing to scale our total wealth solution across the region, including in the Caribbean and Mexico, where quarter-over-quarter earnings were up 14% and 15%, respectively. Finally, in global banking and markets, loans were up 7% quarter over quarter as growth returns after a period of optimization. Deposits were also up 9% sequentially, helped by positive momentum in global transaction banking. We ended the quarter with the highest quarterly net income on record in global banking and markets, as both global capital markets and investment banking delivered several marquee transactions for us. These include acting as joint lead and book runner on the two largest debt capital markets deals ever done in Canada, our largest asset backed securities deal since we established our structured credit platform, acting as a book runner on the largest IPO in Canada since 2021, and our first lead-left leveraged finance deal. All of this activity speaks to the increasing depth and breadth of our global banking and markets franchise on both sides of the border. and the investments we have made in capabilities. We are delivering strong and consistent results across the bank while still investing in the future, including in AI, where we continue to advance our enterprise-wide AI agenda with a focus on practical adoption, including training, scalable infrastructure and responsible governance. This quarter, we expanded Scotia Intelligence, our bank's centralized data and AI platform to launch new capabilities to improve productivity and free up capacity for higher value work. These new advanced features will help our teams collaborate in real time, turn complex information into clear outputs, and move from concept to execution faster. With the recent launch of our Scotia Intelligence Knowledge Agents, employees now have access to AI-powered solutions that facilitate easy access to institutional information, enabling faster execution of routine processes. helping them to focus on higher value innovation and client outcomes. Also this quarter, Scotiabank joined with Lightworks, Sun Life, and Telus to launch the AI Consortium, a collaborative Canadian model designed to help large regulated organizations build and govern the critical control systems required to deploy AI safely. Looking ahead, we are confident that we'll be able to finish the year strong and enter fiscal 2027 with momentum. Our Q3 results are proof that our strategy is working and that we are succeeding in building deeper, more profitable client relationships both in Canada and across our international footprint through a constant focus on improving business mix, boosting fee income, and driving efficiency gains across the organization. I will now turn it to Raj for a more detailed financial review.

Thank you Scott and good morning everyone. My all bank and other segment comments will be on an adjusted basis, which includes the usual amortization of acquisition related intangibles. The business line results will be on a reported basis. Moving to slide eight for a review of the third quarter results. The bank reported quarterly earnings of $3 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.28. My remarks that follow will refer to the last column on this slide, that excludes the impact of divestitures. Return on equity was 14.2%, up 170 basis points year over year, driven by strong revenue growth of 16%. Net interest income grew 12% year over year as net interest margin grew 18 basis points from higher margins across all business segments. NIM was unchanged quarter over quarter as higher margins in Canadian banking and Global Banking and Markets were offset by lower margins in international banking. Recall, international banking margins had some seasonal benefits last quarter. Non-interest income was up 21% year over year, primarily on higher banking and wealth management revenues, underwriting and advisory fees, and other fees and commissions, and higher income from associated corporations. Expenses grew 14% year over year, mainly due to higher performance and share-based compensation related to higher business volume and profitability and higher technology spend to support strategic growth initiatives which grew 16% to $1.5 billion this quarter. This resulted in pre-tax pre-provision profit growth of 18% year-over-year. The bank generated positive year-to-date operating leverage of 3.9% and the productivity ratio improved by 90 basis points year-over-year to 52.5%. The average loans increased 4% year-over-year, while deposits increased 5%. Moving to slide 9, the bank's CET1 capital ratio remained strong at 13.1%. We generated capital from strong earnings in the quarter offset by increased lending and underwriting activity. We repurchased 8.6 million shares this quarter, representing 20 basis points of capital usage. The total risk-weighted assets was $493 billion, up $11 billion quarter-over-quarter, excluding effects mainly relating to higher credit risk, including the recall of a synthetic risk transfer transaction. In Q4, certain international banking portfolios are migrating from the standardized approach to the ARB approach, that will reduce our capital ratios by approximately 15 basis points. We expect to absorb this impact and maintain our CET1 ratio around 13% next quarter. Turning now to the business line results beginning on slide 10, Canadian banking earnings were $1.1 billion, up 12% year over year from strong pre-tax, pre-provision earnings growth of 11%, partially offset by higher provision for credit losses. Loans grew 3% year-over-year, driven by 4% growth in mortgages and 3% growth in commercial and small business loans, while personal loans grew 1%. Day-to-day and savings deposits grew 1% year-over-year, in line with our strategy. However, deposits declined 2% year-over-year, mostly in term. Turning to the P&L, net interest income grew 7% year-over-year from loan growth and margin expansion. Net interest margin expanded for the fifth consecutive quarter, up two basis points sequentially, driven by an increase in both loan and deposit margins. Non-interest income was up 11% year-over-year from high mutual fund distribution fees, credit card revenues, and insurance income. The PCL ratio decreased eight basis points sequentially to 42 basis points, driven by declines in both performing and in paid PCLs. The expenses were up 5% year-over-year, from investments in technology to support strategic growth initiatives, partly offset by the benefit of efficiency initiatives. The year-to-date operating leverage was 3.7%. Turning now to global wealth management on slide 11. The earnings of $515 million were up 23% year-over-year, as Canadian earnings were up 27%, and international was up 4%. Spot AUM and AUA grew 16% and 13% year-over-year, respectively, from market appreciation and higher net sales. Revenues were up 18% year-over-year from higher mutual fund fees, net interest income, and brokerage revenues. The expenses were up 16% year-over-year from higher volume-related expenses, Salesforce expansion to support business growth, and technology costs. Year-to-date operating leverage was 2.2%. Turning to slide 12, global banking and markets earnings was $647 million, up 37% year-over-year. The revenue grew 32% year-over-year, as capital markets revenues were up 33%, and business banking was up 30%. Net interest income was up 34% year-over-year, primarily due to higher margins, and higher client driven capital markets activities. Non-interest income was up 31% year over year due to higher underwriting and advisory fees and client driven trading revenue from equities and foreign exchange. Expenses were up 26% year over year, mainly due to higher performance based personal costs on stronger results and higher volume related costs, including technology to support business growth. These results were supported by strong loan growth of 5% year-over-year. Canadian loans grew 7% quarter-over-quarter and 9% year-over-year. Deposits also grew 12% helped by the investments we have made in global transaction banking. Moving to slide 13, my comments on international banking are on a constant dollar basis and exclude the impact of divested operations. The segment delivered earnings of $725 million, up 6% year-over-year. Revenue increased 7% year-over-year, with net interest income up 3%, while non-interest income increased 18% from higher income from the WB&I investment, card revenues, and insurance income. Net interest margin of 469 basis points was up 18 basis points, but declined seven basis points from seasonally higher net interest margin in the prior quarter. Deposits were up 6% year over year as personal deposits grew 4% and non-personal grew 7%. The loans were down 1% year over year as non-retail loans declined 7% while retail loans grew 5%. Operating leverage was 1.9% year to date. The PCL ratio declined 28 basis points sequentially to 138 basis points, mainly driven by lower impaired PCLs. The GBM business and international banking generated earnings of $321 million, driven by strong capital markets revenue growth. The effective tax rate increased sequentially to 21.3% due to favorable adjustments in the prior quarter and changes in earnings mixed across jurisdictions. Looking ahead, Chile announced a reduction in the tax rate by 4% over the next three years to 23%. Although this will result in lower taxes in future years, once enacted, it will also require a one-time deferred tax asset write-down in Q4. Turning to slide 14, the other segment net loss was $42 million compared to $35 million of income in the prior quarter due to elevated investment gains in the last quarter. I'll now turn the call over to Shannon to discuss risk.

Thank you, Raj, and good morning, everyone. Our credit performance improved this quarter, with PCLs beginning to decline in line with our outlook for the second half of the year. Against this backdrop, all bank provisions for $1.1 billion, or 56 basis points, down 10 basis points quarter over quarter. Impaired provisions were $1 billion, or 52 basis points, down 9 basis points quarter over quarter, driven mainly by lower international banking provisions related to the single corporate account we discussed last quarter and better performance in Canadian retail. Performing provisions were poor basis points, down 1 basis point quarter over quarter, reflecting lower provisions in Canadian and international banking, partially offset by higher provisions in global banking and markets. Our allowance for credit losses increased to $7.6 billion, or 97 basis points, up one basis point quarter-over-quarter. Turning to slide 17. Gross impaired loans increased one basis point quarter-over-quarter to 100 basis points, with modest increases across business lines. Overall, GIL formations declined quarter-over-quarter, primarily reflecting elevated corporate formations in international banking and Canadian commercial in the prior quarter. Turning to slide 18. In Canadian banking, provisions were $498 million, or 42 basis points, down 8 basis points quarter over quarter. In commercial, total PCLs were down $11 million quarter over quarter to $129 million. In retail, total PCLs were $369 million, or 39 basis points, down $66 million quarter over quarter. Performing PCLs were $24 million, down $10 million quarter per quarter, reflecting more favorable forward-looking indicators, primarily from lower interest rates and positive credit migration in auto and cards. Impaired provisions in retail were $345 million, down $56 million, driven by lower net write-offs and unsecured lines of credit, and lower impairments in auto, reflecting improved delinquency trends from continued collection efforts. While we are encouraged by the improving trends in impaired provisions and 90-day delinquency across most retail products, we continue to monitor some pockets of weakness, including elevated mortgage delinquencies. That being said, mortgage clients remain resilient, and our overall retail portfolio quality remains strong, with an average FICO score of 798. Moving to international banking. International banking provisions were $522 million, or 138 basis points, down 28 basis points quarter over quarter. In commercial, PCLs declined quarter over quarter, driven mainly by lower impaired provisions from an elevated Q2 relating to the one account in Brazil. We continue to work through this account. In this quarter, we took an incremental provision of $57 million, and reclassified $14 million related to a derivative exposure from CVA to PCL with no change in the underlying exposure. International banking retail provisions were also lower quarter over quarter, reflecting improved performance in Mexico and improved delinquency performance in Chile across most products. This was partially offset by higher mortgage impairment in Chile and the Caribbean. In global banking and markets, provisions for $53 million, or 18 basis points, up four basis points quarter over quarter driven by higher performing provisions from forward-looking indicators and impaired provisions mainly driven by new formations in Canada. In closing, while the delinquency trends are encouraging, we continue to monitor the sustainability of the improvements given continued geopolitical developments, elevated energy costs contributing to increased inflation, and persistent trade uncertainty. Our allowances incorporate a range of forward-looking macroeconomic scenarios. This, together with the high quality and demonstrated resilience of the portfolio, supports our comfort with current allowance levels and our position in the current environment. With that, I will turn it back to Meny for Q&A.

Thanks, Shannon. Operator, we're now ready for our first question.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. And if you would like to withdraw your question, again press star 1. Your first question comes from the line of Ibrahim Poonawalla with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Ibrahim Poonawalla Hey, good morning. I guess maybe if I could start with the Canadian business segment. It feels like we're making a ton of progress there in terms of just improving the business mix, growing that. But I was looking at the year-to-date ROE in that business is about 18% and change. If I go back, I think, Raj, when you presented at the Invest Today, you talked about a big sort of the ROE bridge and that 18% going into, I think, 22%, 23% kind of sort of ballpark. Just talk to us when we think about the ROE in that business today at 18 and that journey towards maybe low to even mid-20s one, is that the right way to think about that business? And if so, what else needs to happen over the next year or two for us to get to that point from where we are today?

Thank you. Hi, I was here. Let me take that question. I think what is happening in business banking, obviously we have the commercial segment and the smaller business banking segment, but on the commercial segment, what has been in flight for probably the last 18 months is the increase and build-up of our mid-market segment. So as you know, we were quite heavy in the real estate side, and over time now we're expanding into the mid-market. Year to date, we've added nearly 700 mid-market clients, which is up almost 85% year on year and obviously this mid-market client is deposit rich higher margin lending and that pipeline is building in market as we also leverage the capabilities of GTB or transaction banking in that segment. We're also as you know on the mid-market in addition we are also driving a lot of process improvement end-to-end in the commercial bank. and, of course, gathering these operating deposits. We're up probably around 3% to 4% in operating deposits across the segment, all contributing, of course, to higher ROE over time. So that's one aspect. And then we shouldn't forget business banking, the smaller part of our commercial segment, where you see loans growing double-digit consistently, quarter-on-quarter, deposits growing. and more importantly, we're focused on specialized segments. That's healthcare, professionals, accountants and here we're gaining share and obviously the margins are rich and you see the ROE there almost at 25% and when you take these two businesses together, we're confident as we continue and especially as our transaction banking capabilities improve that we can hit the 20% plus ROE over time. So all on a good track.

Your next question comes from the line of John Aiken with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Francisco. I was hoping that we could dive into the outlook for international. I mean, we're seeing on a sequential basis loan growth revenues pick up. Do we think that we're at an inflection point or a pivot in terms of the loan growth moving forward? And then secondarily, even though with the revenue growth, we are still seeing expenses remaining reasonably high, any sense in terms of when that might move into positive operating leverage territory? Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for the question, and good morning to all. This is an important quarter in the sense that it marks the effectiveness of the Pivot to Growth effort we've been leading for the last four quarters. We're now seeing the business going at 6% year-on-year, and when you look at the underlying business lines, we're growing substantially higher revenues than what we saw in 2025. And that positions us to the target in 2027 and beyond of growth within the 6% to 8% level of the revenue front. We don't see a reason for expenses to move beyond where we've been, which is around the 4% level. That continues to be materially below inflation. We have been able to capture the power of synergies and scale through the regionalization effort that we implemented in the first two years of the transformation. And we see that trajectory stable over time. And we see our ability to drive very important solutions across all markets at scale. So when you combine those two, you should see PTPP like you see in this quarter is growing sequentially year-on-year at 8% or above. We are very encouraged with the quality of the new vintages that we're onboarding and the effectiveness and penetration on our GTP business across corporate and commercial. So the combination of those two should allow us to see a more stable credit performance going forward. that should allow us to deliver double digit earnings in 27 and beyond. That's the path we're in. And that path is demonstrated by the ROEs that today are sitting north of 16%. And we see that path going forward. So we are very excited by the delivery across all markets and business lines that we've seen so far. And we don't see a change going forward other than consolidating this revenue growth performance that we've seen throughout 2026.

Thanks, Francisco. I'll recoup.

And your next question comes from the line of Gabriel Duchesne with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Hey, just sticking with international, you mentioned some conversion of portfolios from standardized to AIRB, and that's going to reduce your quarter one by 15 basis points. Just wondering why that is. Typically, it goes the other way. and is this a kind of a one and done or is there more of that type of transition taking place?

Hey Gabe, it's Raj. Yeah, it is one and done. I think there were certain portfolios we should have converted a few years back. We've been on a journey because our data quality had to continue to improve and this is the quarter which is the upcoming quarter we're going to convert those to ARB. Some of it comes down to conservatism that is expected in Basel because, you know, the data quality in the countries are not as great, not our portfolio. So it's expected to add a level of conservatism to the modeled outputs, and that's why it results in a 15 basis point increase in our capital requirements. Obviously, you know, there'll be some near-term impact to the ROV in the international banking business because the denominator is going to increase next quarter, but it's pretty much done. And afterwards, we should see you know our portfolio is growing in line with our new risk appetite the way Francisco is laying out his business for growth and we should start seeing our returns improving the ROE should continue to improve but it's done with Q4.

Okay and actually you know I'll stick with international and ask about the global banking and markets earnings that are booked in the segment we're up over you know 40% of total Segment Earnings from that source so far this year. How intertwined is that business with your personal commercial bank, if you will, across the region? And what does the ROE look like if that business is not there? I suspect quite a bit lower.

Well, thanks for the question. It's a very important one because this is a decision we made, I would say, probably a year and a half ago, a little more. as we continue to try to drive higher earnings and create value for investors managing capital very smartly and we decided to build market leading capital markets capabilities supporting the international footprint and we've been able to put together an extraordinary team very aligned by the way with the global strategy that Travis is also leading in the same space so what we're doing is really capturing the piece of the wallet we never pursued and we're seeing Fantastic response from our clients. We're now covering the sovereign space, which we thought we'd never covered. Given our very substantial presence in many of these markets, we're covering sovereigns with structured solutions and liability management. And we're participating in domestic capital markets in a way that before we couldn't. So what you saw in this quarter as a question of year on year, you're seeing growth on the revenue front of 40% without necessarily absorbing material capital. This is also very accretive to primacy within the GBM space because we're now having strategic conversations with clients in a nature that we couldn't have before. So when you see this contribution together with our very strong corporate relationships now capturing the full space of the wallet, including transaction banking and a deeper relationship on the transactional basis with clients, this is really capturing the full wallet on the GBM space. So we see that as a very powerful development in our business strategy and to carry forward definitely going beyond 2026. So very strong showing this quarter and we're very excited about the potential of this business going forward.

And the ROE?

Your next question. The ROE from this business, absolutely.

We don't break that up, Gabe. Obviously the ROE between the separate business funds.

Your next question comes from the line of David Conrad with KBW. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Just want to talk a little about capital markets. You highlighted in the call a really strong quarter, particularly in the IB side with a lot of large deals. So maybe if you talk about like maybe near-term expectations next quarter or so, is there going to be a little bit of a give back in that, but also maybe the long-term growth rate with all the investments you made in the business?

Yeah, sure. Hey, Gabe, thanks for the question. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say that we were thinking about you and your firm over the next couple of weeks. Thank you. But I appreciate it. If you think about where we are right now, I think for this quarter, if you look, it was obviously a broad-based record quarter for GBM. And if you look through the numbers, whether that was in capital markets or investment banking, whether it's loans, deposits, You've seen a lot of activity throughout the quarter. And if you step back and look at it, very intentional. Over the last two or three years, we've been on a journey. We've been de-emphasizing some businesses or regions, and we've been doubling down on building new products and services and focus in our core footprint, both Canada and the U.S. and the rest of the world. And so we're on the journey of trying to build a very durable franchise that's very broad-based. We feel like we're building a business that is perfect for this environment where we can offer excellent products and services and advice to our clients as they're trying to navigate the complex environment. Our outlook and our pipelines remain quite strong. And I think we're proving quarter over quarter that when the markets are constructive, that we can capitalize on that and we can service our clients with excellent products and advice.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Doug Young with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. I guess this is for Shannon. Shannon, I think you expected or you talked about impaired PCL rate to be mid 50 basis points and the second half was 52 this quarter and that included a decent drag from the Brazilian loan this quarter again. So I think it's safe to say things are seem to be progressing better than expected. Just wanted to kind of get your sense as to what's driving that, and are you sticking with that guidance for Q4? And maybe if you can kind of layer on, obviously, some new tariff announcements here. How does that impact your outlook and your view on credit over the near term?

Thanks for the question. So maybe I'll go back to what informed our outlook at the time. There were a few items I called out that we were monitoring quite closely. The first was the macroeconomic environment and just the uncertainty within it. In Canadian retail, we were seeing entry rates and early stage delinquency were improving, but we were certainly monitoring whether they would be sustained at those levels. We had several collection initiatives that were still coming online. Lastly, for non-retail, we always talk about the risk of episodic activity, given the environment we're operating in. So if I think about what's occurred since then, I think there's a few things I would highlight. One, in Canadian banking retail, the early stage in 90-plus-day delinquency has improved across products except for mortgages, and our collections initiatives are delivering strong benefits. We also saw bill formations decline in Canadian commercial. So the performance continues to develop largely as expected, as our collections initiatives are yielding quite strong results. And when I go back to our original outlook, our performance is in line with what we said at the time, which was that impaired PCLs were going to trend down in the latter half of the year, which is certainly what we are seeing. And then if I think about tariffs, I think about it in a few ways. Clearly, the evolving trade outlook, we look at the impact to our clients and our portfolio and then how we are managing that risk. In terms of outlook, I think this is a good example of the uncertainty that we are currently managing. The scope and duration of tariffs continues to evolve, and the ultimate impact is going to depend on degree of retaliation, government support, and how consumers and our businesses respond. In terms of our exposure, we've been monitoring industries more vulnerable to tariffs since last year, and if I look at the latest measures that were announced, just to give you some context, That represents less than 1% of our total bank loans. In terms of how we're managing these risks, our scenarios and allowances already reflect a range of outcomes, but we'll continue to reassess new developments as they occur. And maybe if I just take a step back, if you go back to Q2 of last year, we did build 18 basis points in performing PCL. And at that time, our downside scenarios modeled Canadian tariff rates of 12.5% and up to 25% with full retaliation. and our base case today assumes that tariffs are implemented and that trade negotiations continue. So if I put all of that together, we're monitoring the situation, we're very comfortable with where we are and we'll continue to reassess the situation as it evolves.

Maybe just, Doug, if I can add on a couple of things on the tariff situation. I mean, I think it's important just to take a step back. The fundamentals in Canada are pretty good. And if you look at the job growth numbers, If you look at the fiscal capacity on the back of oil prices and if you look at some of the activity that's starting because of the Prime Minister's agenda, you actually have a backdrop that's pretty good. As you think about the tariffs that were just put in place, it's 5% of exports. It's a small impact on GDP, 0.2, 0.3. And you're going to see at 11 o'clock today support programs rolled out by the government on There will be select sectors that will be impacted. So as I put all that together, I think this obviously creates uncertainty, but with the current tariffs, it's manageable. I think if I could add one point, I think we should use this as a country, use this moment to accelerate further the Prime Minister's agenda, removing interprovincial trade barriers, reducing the timing of approvals, getting big things done. and continuing to diversify trade while also continuing the great trade relationship we have with the U.S. And we look at the U.S., the U.S., as you saw from Travis's business, is doing quite well. So you put that all together, I mean, of course there's uncertainty, but it does feel like a manageable force to get through as a country and as a North American corridor as well.

I appreciate it. And then just the second question, are we at 14% or just are we I think that's your target. I think you were targeting that for next year, so a little earlier than expected. I guess my question is, is there any structural reason why this bank can't be a 15% plus ROE bank? What takes you from where you are to that 15% plus?

I think we're very pleased, and I want to thank all and that's the 14.2% this quarter. You know, there is more opportunities for sure and if you think about the Canadian Bank which maybe Aris will expand on later in the call or after this, we see a significant opportunity to continue that progression and that is up 160 base points year over year. It's on the back of the business mix strategy we've put in place and we're just getting started. We are just getting started in Canada and over the last couple quarters you've seen these green shoots and this quarter you're starting to see you know more than green shoots and that is going to be the biggest driver of the ROE improvement of this bank over the next journey so maybe Aris just talk a little bit about Canada.

Thanks Scott so as Scott talked about early in the call there's four components to our what I call ROE expansion strategy and we laid it out during investor day and you see in this quarter and the last progress translating into the P&L on the business mix we've talked about it many times non-mortgage lending now is accelerating and actually past mortgage growth in the quarter for the first time in two years and we see that in the card book, the business banking book, ULOC and commercial and that should continue. You see also the second component on the business mix is on the deposit side, more day-to-day, more savings, that will continue. The other big component of our capital heavier businesses in auto and mortgage is the improvement in RAM. We're seeing that Also, as we renew the mortgages, you're going to see the RAM lifting, and we saw that in the quarter as well, a big increase in RAM. And then fees, we've talked about the big components of fees, cards, insurance, and mutual funds, all grew over 20% increase in revenues this quarter. That's significant. And the NIR overall was double-digit, despite the impact of NSF fee regulation changes, which impacted, but we still came in double-digit. And then finally, we shouldn't forget productivity. We've had five consecutive quarters of Oplev expansion. Where's that coming from? We haven't grown direct costs in 12 months. So year on year, the direct cost base for the Canadian bank has been flat. That said, we've added over 500 salespeople and continue to invest in digital AI and technology enablement. This quarter, actually, digital sales passed 44% of total sales. That's almost double what we had during Investor Day. So we're making huge progress on that. And of course, we can't ignore the power of the network and what we're doing on the sales side in mutual funds. And I think it's important also to pass to Jackie to give a bit of color on the progress we're making just in the sales power in the network.

Yeah, sure. When I think about retail fund flows, we've made significant progress on both an absolute and a relative basis. And it's not an anomaly. We're ranked number three for the quarter. We're also ranked number three on a year-to-date basis with over $4 billion in retail fund sales. And rankings are nice, but I think we take our confidence really from the underlying operating improvement. The drivers are right in line with the strategy that we laid out. Stronger execution on our partnership with Canadian Banking. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Holden with CIBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Question on GPM. So very strong sequential loan growth, 7%. So obviously that's by design, but maybe talk a little bit about that in terms of what a reasonable run rate is. Obviously, 7% is probably not a run rate. What do you think a reasonable run rate is? and just confirmation, it seems like that's coming with the deposits. Deposit growth was even stronger. So maybe talk about how the two were tied together in terms of, you know, again, by design, that's the strategy and the fee income that should also come with those wholesale loans. Thank you.

Yeah, Paul Strauss, thanks for the question. And I think you're right. I think a couple of quarters ago, I mentioned that we might be on a flexion point where we thought loans would bottom out. And if you look at the investments we're making, In our franchise, we're investing across sectors. We're deepening the sectors where we're already strong. We're well positioned for the current environment. And I think our loan book is reflecting that. In addition, we've been building out new products and services, as I've mentioned before, whether it's mortgage capital markets or craft or other subsectors. And I think you're starting to see those businesses taking off. And I think loan growth is really just a reflection of the economic output. and the focus that we have on our clients, it's not a KPI that we're trying to drive. We're not out there just trying to grow loans to grow loans. We're looking at covering our clients, providing great products and services and using our capital and our liquidity as efficiently as possible and we're highly focused on the velocity of our capital. So if you look at some of the data, you will see that our return per risk unit are up significantly. You can see that our fees per loan unit are up significantly. And so we're picking the right clients. We're banking those clients. We're providing all the products and services to those. And I think loan growth will be an outcome of that strategy. On the deposit side, you're absolutely right. That is very, very intentional. We are super, super focused on deposits. Anything, everything we do is really trying to capture those core operating deposits in connection with Francisco on the GTB build out. We're investing heavily there. and we are looking to continue growing that business. And I think one of the things you'll notice that our net interest margin was up 30 something basis points year over year. So we've been able to grow deposits, grow loans and expand our margin. And that's a hyper focus on quality, customer segmentation and cross-selling.

And then one really quick sort of micro question for me, if you don't mind, just in terms of the The SRT, can you remind us what drove the decision to bring that back on balance sheet and did that play a role in that 7% sequential growth in GBM?

Hey, Paul, it's Raj. No, that doesn't contribute to the 7% because the loan is always in our book. The SRT is only a capital structure. It's an SRT we put in place about three years back when we had floor constraints. So it's an expensive SRT. As we look at it today, we obviously don't have capital constraints, so we just recall that SRT, and that increases RWA, which is a benefit, or some part of the benefit we got in 2023 when we put it on, but it doesn't impact longer.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Mario Mendonca with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I want to go back to capital markets for a moment. I think we're all Impressed and also a little surprised about how strong capital markets related revenue is. And what I'm trying to think through is what are the conditions that cause this to slow or even reverse? And I take you back to last week when there was a fair bit of uncertainty around U.S. Treasuries. There was some intervention there. Is that the sort of condition that dries up liquidity and hurts capital markets or are the overall Macro drivers like the hyperscalers and AI, like in the capital formation related to that, and also your expansion and capabilities. Are those macro drivers sort of, would they overwhelm something like what happened in U.S. Treasuries last week?

Yeah, I would say what you saw on the U.S. Treasuries, you know, that was mainly focused on the long end of the bond. And as you know, that doesn't affect capital markets quite as much. I would say more of the 10-year and inside would would affect capital markets. And what you're really thinking about and the reaction function I think you're looking for is you want volatility in the capital market side, but you want constructive volatility. Too much volatility, so if the VIX pops to 50 plus, you're going to see your ECM and DCM businesses compressed. But when you have constructive volatility, which is what we have right now on a global scale, is you have clients trying to navigate really complex environment right now. They're trying to understand their FX risk. They're trying to understand capital formation. They're trying to understand the right capital structure for their businesses, for the new world. And this is where we're super well positioned to help advise our clients. We are building world-class expertise. We're investing in our people and our products. And we can provide those, whether it's debt capital markets, equity capital markets, hedging, investment banking, corporate banking, deposits, and Global Banking Capabilities. And this is all very, very intentional. It's part of our strategy. But when you're looking for reaction functions, the 30-year, a little less so, probably 10-year and in, I would say VIX and some of the volatility and exchange rates. For the last year or two or since Liberation Day, these have all been highly constructive. And you're also seeing a reinvestment in Canada. I mean, Canada is really looking to grow. And you look at our loan growth, we're actually up 9% in Canada year over year versus 5% on average loans. We are investing in our local markets and our local clients, and we're well positioned for that cross-border activity.

So notwithstanding this pretty strong growth we've seen in the last couple of years, and again, I'm not so much asking you for guidance for next year, But we shouldn't be surprised if this environment allows for our Canadian banks to grow their capital markets revenue still further. You wouldn't guide us to something like a contraction revenue from this point forward.

I think capital markets businesses are always hard to predict, right? Because you need a lot of the things I just talked about. And if you can tell me exactly where the S&P or the Toronto Stock Exchange is going to be, where rates are going to be, where FX is going to be next year, I could probably... reverse engineer into the answer that you're looking for. I think what we're trying to do is we're trying to build products and services that we can help our clients in any environment. So it's a little difficult to tell you exactly the magnitude or order of where revenue or day income would be next year. But we are investing in our future. We're investing in new products and capabilities. And I think what you can take away from this quarter, while it was a record and an exceptional quarter, it was very broad based across every single product, Region, Service, Subgroup, you name it. We saw a broad base widening of our business.

Okay. A question for you, Scott. I'll take you back a couple of years when you and I had a conversation about sort of long-term aspirations for Scotia. And you described it to me as wanting to see a Scotia in the North American corridor, and that included Canada, U.S., and Mexico. I think that was the way you described it. There is an important opportunity here for Canada's banks in looking at U.S. regionals, given the disparity in valuation. I think where I'm going with this question is, can Scotia grow in the U.S. through acquisition while still in this lockup with Key, which I know ends sometime, I think it's December 2029. Can you grow in the U.S. through acquisitions while still maintaining this interest in Key, or do you see those as They need to be separate. You need to be either in-key or out-of-key before you can make an acquisition in the U.S. Those are a couple different questions in there.

So first, the key investment was an investment. We've talked about that ad nauseum, and it's been a great investment. And when you look at their share price and their performance and how they've executed, it's been a great investment for the firm, but it is just that. As we think about growing in the U.S., the first port of call is Travis' business. We've said this continually, and you're starting to see that investment that we've been making starting to pay off. Travis talked about Canada, which we're super proud of, but the U.S. also is very broad-based, lots of capabilities being added, and frankly, in Mexico, you heard and many more. potentially to build out on the capabilities that we're focused on. That's the priority right now.

So it sounds like your interest in the U.S. is in capital markets, not in commercial banking. Is that true?

Yeah, I think right now where we've got the biggest opportunity is in Travis's business and in Jackie's business. As we think about Jackie's business, it's doing so well, the Canadian focus and also the international focus. Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Lee with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe back to Francisco. LATAM retail growth continues to be strong. I think you particularly called out non-mortgage. So I assume some of that's coming from credit cards. So can you just talk about how you think about balancing growth, credit, and privacy as you expand that credit card portfolio in LATAM?

Thank you, Matt. Absolutely. This has been a very deliberate journey, right? If you go back to... Investor Day. What we tried to do is, number one, segment our client base. And that took us about a year in really understanding who our client was, what the needs were, and how do we segment across the footprint and not country by country. Remember, the key goal here is scale in everything we do in retail. We completed that segmentation. And on the back of that, we created value propositions that were very specific to primacy. What we concluded in that journey is that mortgage monoline does not deliver primacy. And the problem with non-primacy and monoline is that you don't capture deposits and you have high attrition. So the journey needed to shift our focus towards primacy. The definition for us is really the combination of the full suite of products, where you need transactionality, and transactionality is delivered by credit cards, is delivered by personal loans, is delivered by payroll, is delivered by insurance, and investment advice. And that's what we're looking for and where you see the growth of non-mortgage and what we refer to non-mortgage is really the combination of all those products. And what we're seeing today is that we're seeing deposit growth to an extent that we've never seen before in retail. Although the average deposit growth is 5%, core deposits are up 7%. And that is a huge contributor to our returns in the long term. The other component to think about here is that when you talk about cards, for example, is that the minimum share across all countries, right? Probably the only exception being Chile, where we have a little bit more. But beyond Chile, we're not necessarily playing to our size and scale in any market. So it's not a credit card strategy per se. It is a primacy strategy that recognizes that cards and personal loans are an important component to be prioritized by our clients. as they transact with the bank. Without having a transactional relationship, they will not bring the payroll to you. So it is really a combined effort, and that's why we're so deliberately focused on non-mortgage. Okay, that's helpful. I'll pass the line.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Boland with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thanks for putting me in. Just a comment about the Canada agenda. I guess, you know, Austin's giving you another 50 basis points of excess capital. So I'm wondering if part of that capital is going to be used to support that Canada agenda, so defense, infrastructure, AI, or is that excess capital just going to be used to continue to buy back shares?

Yeah, thanks, David. Scott, I'll start and Rajagopal. I mean, the first call for our capital is organic growth. And I think we have a You saw that in the quarter with deployment of capital to organic growth. As I look at the Canada agenda, I do think there are a lot of opportunities. You think about infrastructure, pipelines, you think about defense. We've actually really organized ourselves significantly differently over the last six months to capitalize on the defense opportunity. Now, as you think about an emerging or evolving relationship with the US, and many more. A place that will go will be share repurchases, and that's because there's a valuation gap and we still think there's great opportunity. You saw a little bit of that in last quarter. You'll continue to see us renew and do more as we go forward. And so it's that combination of organic growth and share repurchases that I think right now provide the best equation for our shareholders.

Okay, thank you.

There are no further questions on the conference line. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Raj Viswanathan.

Thank you. On behalf of the entire management team, I want to thank everyone for participating in our call today. We look forward to speaking to you again at our Q4 call in December. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.