Okay, I’ve finally got the password and the permission to go ahead with this new blog. And so here we go—a dedicated attempt to chart the emergence of the new financial services industry that is necessarily going to grow out of the mess we’re in now.

With their staid and conservative cultures, Canadian banks have weathered the global financial crisis relatively well. They didn’t get as reckless in their lending and other business practices to the extent U.S. banks did, so they have come through with relatively clean balance sheets and twice the return on assets. ...