Is Canada facing subprime mortgage risk?

As reported in the Financial Post, Canadian lenders are loosening standards, offering mortgages similar to U.S. subprime loans that pose an "emerging risk" to financial institutions, according to the banking regulator.

Banks and other lenders are becoming "increasingly liberal" with mortgages and home-equity credit lines that don't require individuals to prove their income, according to 152 pages of documents obtained by Bloomberg News under freedom of information law from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. The mortgages, typically granted to the self-employed and recent immigrants, "have some similarities to non-prime loans in the U.S. retail lending market," the documents show.

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