Bank of Montreal (BMO) is winding down its indirect retail auto finance business and shifting focus to other areas in a move that will result in an unspecified number of job losses, Canada’s third-largest bank said.
The bank, which announced the move on Saturday, has conducted this business in Canada and the United States. The move comes after BMO’s overall bad debt provisions rose to C$492 million, compared with C$136 million a year earlier, for the quarter ended July 31 in a sign of growing stress consumers face from a rapid rise in borrowing costs.
