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Canadian debt delinquencies, insolvency proposals, and bankruptcies are all rising sharply for households and businesses. Equifax president Sue Hutchison discussed the latest data on BNN yesterday. We are in the early days of this distress cycle with three-quarters of pandemic-era low-rate mortgages to reset at higher rates in 2024 through 2026: “We expect to see tremendous pressure, or what we’re calling payment shock, with our lenders over the next year or so”. Here is a direct video link.

“In particular, in Ontario and B.C., we’re seeing quite a significant increase in missed payments and delinquencies.

…Credit cards as a percentage of non-mortgage debt was about 40 per cent in Q3 last year. It’s now 78 per cent, so total balances are growing.

The other concern we have in that portfolio of debt is more and more Canadians are both missing payments, but also paying less, so paying their minimum payment versus paying the whole balance off.”

These trends are not just in Canada, of course. US corporate bankruptcies were 30% higher year-over-year in the latest data to September; see: Bankruptcies soar as high rates and end of Covid aid hit busi­nesses hard.

Also, 40% of US borrowers missed their first student loan payment after the pandemic-related pause ended this fall, the Department of Education said Friday.

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