Parliament listened on Wednesday to allegations that employees at Canada’s big banks face exceeding pressure to hit unreachable sales goals, coax clients into raising their credit-card limits and offer mortgages beyond what customers can reasonably afford.
A committee of federal MPs heard testimony from ex-bank workers to examine questionable, and even illegal, sales practices by some of the country’s largest financial institutions.
“It is absolutely profit before anyone else – it certainly has nothing to do with servicing the clients, as far as I could tell,” said witness Sally Watson, who worked at Scotiabank for 33 years.
“I think what’s shocking is how long this has been going on without anybody ever making a fuss about it – and I think it’s time a fuss was made.”
Watson credited the scandal at Wells Fargo in the United States for encouraging Canadian employees to come forward with their concerns about the industry. Wells Fargo was fined US$185 million last year after employees opened more than 2 million fraudulent accounts in their effort to hit imposing sales targets.
Read more at Brampton Guardian
