Ep.142 | Private Lending Is Older Than Canada's Big Banks

Most people think of private lending as something new. It isn't. In this episode, Ryan and Neal trace the complete history of private lending in Canada, from the handshake loans of the pre-WWI era to the creation of Mortgage Investment Corporations in the 1970s, through the mortgage broker boom of the 80s and 90s, the stress test of 2016 to 2018, and the pandemic explosion that followed.

They break down how MICs were designed to democratize mortgage investing for everyday Canadians, why the structure is uniquely Canadian and doesn't exist anywhere else in the world, and how securitization let the big banks squeeze out individual lenders for decades. They also get into where things are heading: more institutional capital entering the space, tighter regulation, and AI starting to reshape how mortgage applications get processed.

A must-listen if you want to understand the full arc of an industry that has been quietly solving problems banks won't touch for over 100 years.

Chapters:

2:39 Why We're Covering Private Lending History

6:01 Before the Big Banks: Lending Pre-WWI

7:44 The Borrower Profile That Never Changed

8:05 Banks Were More Conservative Back Then

10:24 Why MICs Were Created in the 1970s

11:00 How a MIC Actually Works

14:23 MICs Are Uniquely Canadian

15:04 When Mortgage Brokers Changed the Game

17:37 When Housing Became an Asset Class

20:03 The Stress Test That Changed Everything

23:32 Was Growth Need-Driven or Lender-Driven?

26:29 The Pandemic Boom: 2020 to 2022

28:57 Private Lending Today: More Sophisticated Than Ever

33:54 Future: Institutional Capital and Regulation

34:26 AI Is Coming for the Broker Space

38:31 Where Private Lending Goes from Here

Resources:
Keystone Capital Group
CPLP Instagram: @cplpodcast
Keystone Instagram: @keycapgroup

Find Neal On:
Instagram: @neal.andreino
LinkedIn: Neal Andreino

Find Ryan on:
LinkedIn: Ryan MacNeil
E-mail: ryan@keycap.ca