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It goes back farther than that. In 1911 there were 29,000 banks. The Federal Reserve Act passed in December of 1913. By 1915 there were 19,000 banks. The expansion of credit in the 1920s cause a surge in new banks reaching more than 29,000 again. When the credit fueled stock market crashed in 1929 many banks closed. By 1933 there were about 14,000 banks. Each business/credit cycle the number of banks grows when credit is easy and collapse and consolidate as loans default. Each cycle results in more consolidated banks. Nation wide credit cycles would not be possible without the Federal Reserve pulling the interest rate lever.

https://www.fdic.gov/about/history/timeline/1900-1919.html https://www.bis.org/publ/work137.pdf

More importantly, there are really only five major banks in Canada - RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO and CIBC. National Bank is a close #6, but is really only big in Quebec. Those five are the lion's share of the banking industry, especially when you consider that they own a number of the other banks (Scotiabank owns Tangerine, for example). The other banks are niche regional banks or for specific purposes (i.e. Home Bank business is largely selling GICs and lending mortgages, without much else).

The list only includes "bank"s, that are federally-regulated entities. The biggest provider of banking services in Quebec is Desjardins, but it doesn't appear in the list because technically it's not a bank and it is regulated provincially not federally. Also depending on how you want to count it, Desjardins is either one entity or an ensemble of 210 credit unions. Similarly, ATB gets an honourable mention, but other non-bank providers of banking services such as First Calgary Financial or Vancity (both credit unions) are not shown in the list.

It's interesting that in the US, even small banking service provides are banks. But in Canada, small ones tend to be provincially regulated entities such as credit unions. It's not that small entities don't exist. They just belong to a different list.

The claim/lie that there were "over 30,000 US banks just 10-15 years ago, it's now less than 3000, and they are all about to fail" is disinfo that is being pushed hard on twitter and reddit. On reddit it seems to be r/Sino regulars brigading financial subreddits but on twitter it seems to be accounts that are very supportive of a former US president.

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