The Harrison Rush/Fire Drill Weekly Wrap-Up

🇨🇦 Canadian Banks Show Strong Compensation Growth for 2025

The Big Five Canadian banks have set a positive tone for the 2025 bonus season, revealing strong growth in their average total compensation packages per person.  

On average, total compensation across the five banks saw a robust increase, with each institution raising its average pay package by at least 7.5%.

Here are the year-over-year increases in average total compensation from 2024 to 2025 for each of the major banks:  

• Scotiabank led the way with the largest percentage gain, seeing a significant +12.8% increase.

• BMO (Bank of Montreal) followed closely with a +10.9% rise.

• CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) reported a +9.3% increase.

• TD (Toronto-Dominion Bank) saw its average compensation go up by +8.4%.

• RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), which already held the highest average compensation figure, increased its package by +7.5%.

These figures, detailed in the banks' Q4 2025 reporting, suggest a generally strong financial performance across the Canadian banking sector.  The compensation data in this post is sourced from the article "Five banks revealed their 2025 bonuses. They weren’t very big" on eFinancialCareers.

While compensation consultancy Johnson Associates suggests a potential bonus increase of up to 25% for some sectors in 2025, those expectations appear overly aggressive. My analysis of the Canadian banks suggests that while bonuses will certainly be up, a more realistic range for overall growth is likely closer to 8-15%, reflecting the specific increases seen in their total compensation reports.