After a period of planning and communicating a strategic refresh, 2024 was the year when Scotiabank’s new strategy began in earnest. It is already showing the benefits in its funding base, fee income, and geographic priorities.
On the funding side, retail deposits and investments grew 6% year-on-year, while the bank added 280,000 primary retail customers in 2024. Its productivity ratio also saw a sharp improvement, freeing up capacity for investment in the business. Its CET1 ratio also rose, reaching 13.1%.
In terms of its geographic priorities, Canada has come ever more to the fore – followed by the US and Mexico – as it has focused on the North American corridor in terms of its capital allocation, targeting higher income from trade and investment flows, notably in cash management.
During the review period, preparations began for an agreement announced in January this year to transfer its Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama businesses to Colombian bank Davivienda, in which Scotiabank will hold a 20% stake. It also agreed to sell its Peruvian microfinance business to Santander during 2024.
Close to home, it took a 14.9% share of KeyBank owner KeyCorp, in Ohio, playing into the North American priority.
Focusing on primary deposits has had two benefits for the bank: reducing reliance on wholesale funding, and fostering deeper relationships with clients, helping fee-based earnings streams such as wealth management and insurance.
Loyalty and rewards programmes such as Scotia Mortgage+ and Scene+ have encouraged clients that might previously have only had a lending relationship with the bank to bring over their deposits. Mortgage+ customers accounted for more than 75% of new mortgages in 2024. Scotiabank has also sought to boost primary deposits by using analytics to improve the personalisation of its offers and campaigns to new-to-bank clients, boosting competitive steal.
Scotiabank has launched a proprietary agentic system called AIDox for triaging inbound emails in the commercial bank, improving automation and speeding up its responses
The firm’s wealth business saw earnings growth of 10% in 2024. It also created a new wealth partnership with Charles River and overall brought its wealth business closer together with retail – training up staff and launching new promotions – and with the commercial bank, boosting both deposits and fee income.
On the wholesale front, the bank has invested more in transaction banking to try to capture a higher share of wallet among large corporates, notably in cash management.
Fee and commissions revenue in its global banking and markets business was up 14% during the year. Small business relationship managers have also been trained in promoting deposits to clients that might previously have only had a loan with Scotiabank.
Making it easier to do business with the bank is another of the new strategic imperatives. That has included investment in technology platforms that help unify operations across the group.
Scotiabank has launched a proprietary agentic system called AIDox for triaging inbound emails in the commercial bank, improving automation and speeding up its responses. It is also using AIDox to confirm over-the-counter trade documentation, and to help review mortgage documents.
