Equitable Bank has entered into an agreement to acquire Concentra Bank, including Concentra Trust and Wyth Financial, from SaskCentral.
Equitable and Concentra merge to form Canada’s seventh largest bank
“This change will empower us to grow and serve customers in new and bold ways,” Equitable board chair David LeGresley and president and CEO Andrew Moor say in a joint statement.
Concentra, through its trade name Wyth Financial, is a mid-market bank and the largest provider of wholesale banking and trust solutions to Canadian credit unions (it serves 90% of credit unions in Canada outside Quebec).
“Like Equitable, Concentra/Wyth is a branchless, digital bank that enjoys deep and trusted relationships with customers and partners including other financial institutions, independent mortgage brokers, and fintech innovators,” LeGresley and Moor say.
“The key difference and the reason for the acquisition is that Equitable’s scale, capabilities, talent, and technology will be enhanced by Concentra so that we can better pursue our challenger bank purpose of driving change in banking to enrich people’s lives.”
Equitable emphasises its culture is aligned with the cooperative spirit of the credit union movement, and it pledges to maintain and grow Concentra’s services to credit union customers – including in the areas of trust and treasury, residential mortgages, mortgage securitisation, origination and syndication, and commercial lending and equipment leasing.
It will also establish a credit union-centric advisory board.
The bank says Concentra’s partnerships with mortgage brokers, origination partners, and fintech partners will continue.
The deal is expected to be completed in a few months. Until then, Concentra and Equitable will operate as two separate banks.
Once merged, the new entity will become Canada’s seventh largest bank by assets.
