Finance Minister to meet with banks about banning insurance sales on banks’ Web sites

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty expects to be sitting down with Canadian bank executives sometime over the next 10 days and discussing the government’s directive to remove insurance sales from their Web sites, according to media reports.
Flaherty made the remarks to reporters in Washington, D.C. at a meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers on the weekend of Apr. 24-25, 2010.
“We’ve had the discussions, but I’m going to have to make clear to them what they can do on their Web sites,” Flaherty is quoted as saying in The Globe and Mail. “I will be meeting with some of the bank executives within the next 10 days or so and that will be one of the subjects we’ll talk about.”
Flaherty spoke after a meeting of the committee of finance chiefs that guides the work of the International Monetary Fund. At a media scrum after the meeting, Flaherty was asked if his opposition to an international bank levy — a levy the banks also oppose — would be perceived as cozying up to the banks.
Flaherty said no, recalling the government’s current stance that banks should be restricted from selling insurance on their Web sites.
“The banks aren’t very happy with me about not letting them sell insurance in their bank branches,” he said. “So I don’t live in a world where I think the banks are that fond of me. Nor should they be.”
Flaherty said he had been reviewing banks’ Web sites recently. He acknowledged to reporters that it might be logistically difficult for banks to satisfy the government’s requirement to keep information about insurance policies away from their general banking pages. Nevertheless, Flaherty held firm.
“I think we can demarcate what is okay and what is not in line with that principle (of not selling insurance) at the meetings that are coming up,” Reuters news service quoted Flaherty as saying. “I think we can get there in a way that will be business-like, that they can live with.”