The U.S. is fully an attractive place to invest; it's the safest country.
Most business lines continue to exhibit strong sales during the quarter, including sales of consumer loans, deposits and credit cards,
We would like to do more acquisitions within our geographic footprint. We think those make sense at the right price, but frankly we're not going to do those if they don't make sense from a price point of view.
The decline may also be the first sign of companies using their cash balances to grow their businesses, which is consistent with the small business loan growth we continued to experience.
Interest rates remain at relatively low levels and consequently the mortgage business remains robust,
broad-based, with nearly every consumer and commercial business line achieving double-digit profit growth.
We decided two years ago, given the burgeoning and growing demand for U.S. corporate bonds, to tap into that and diversify our funding base.
We had solid, broad-based and, in many businesses, accelerating revenue growth, with revenue in businesses other than home mortgage up a combined 17 per cent from a year ago.
