What is the difference between the different types of bank in Canada?

Question

In Canada banks are referred to as tier 1 and tier 2. What are the differences between them? What services are they allowed to offer and not offer? Are all covered by the CDIC?

Answer 1

The "Tier 1" banks in Canada are much like the "Original Six" for the NHL - they were created a long, long time ago, and the definition will (probably) never change :)

Specifically, they are:

1. Royal Bank (RBC)
2. Toronto-Dominon (TD)
3. Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS)
4. Bank of Montreal (BMO)
5. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)

"Tier 2" is everyone else There are some more well-known ones like ING, National Bank, and HSBC.

They are all covered by the CDIC (except for credit unions / caisses populaires). For some reason the fin.gc.ca site is down right now so I'll update this post more tomorrow.

[Update]: Wow they are having issues; search page is completely broken now.