In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, ended October 31, 2024, BMO Financial Group reported net income of $326 million for its Wealth Management business.

In the same quarter of 2023, net income was $351 million. This represents a year-on-year decrease of 7%.

For the full year, BMO Wealth Management's net income reached $1.2 billion in 2024, compared with $1.1 billion in 2023. The year-on-year increase in earnings was $102 million or 9%.

For its wealth and asset management business, BMO reported net income for the fourth quarter of 2024 of $273 million, compared with $202 million for the same period in 2023. This represents an increase of 35%.

For the full year, net income from the wealth and asset management segment reached $1 billion in 2024, compared with $824 million in 2023. This represents a year-on-year increase of $188 million or 23%.

For its insurance activities, net income reached $53 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with $149 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. This represents a decline of 64%.

On a 12-month basis, net income from insurance activities totaled $236 million in 2024, compared with $322 million in 2023. This represents a decrease of 27%.

Once again, BMO explains this decline essentially as a result of the changes made to portfolio positioning during the transition to IFRS 17.

Assets 

At October 31, 2024, assets under management stood at $422.7 billion. A year earlier, these assets stood at $332.9 billion.

This represents an increase of 27% over a 12-month period. BMO attributes this improvement to stronger global markets and increased net client assets.

Assets under administration totaled $361.2 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with $416.3 billion a year earlier. Once again, this 13% decrease is mainly explained by the bank's exit from the institutional trust services business in the first quarter of 2024. This factor was partially offset by the strengthening of global markets.

Revenues  

BMO Wealth Management's net income after deducting claims, commissions and changes in policyholder benefit liabilities (CCPB) amounted to $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. Compared with the final quarter of 2023, this represents an increase of $21 million or 1.4%.

Over the past 12 months, these same net revenues total $5.6 billion, compared with $5.5 billion in 2023. The difference is $135 million or 2.4%.

Revenues generated by the Wealth and Asset Management subsidiary, after subtracting CCPB, amounted to $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, up $152 million or 12% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023.

For the full year, these same revenues reached $5.3 billion, up $349 million or 7% on 2023.

Insurance revenues were down both last quarter and for the year as a whole. After subtracting CCPB, these revenues totalled $87 million in the last quarter of 2024, compared with $218 million in the same period of 2023. This represents a year-on-year decline of 60%.

For the full year, net insurance income was $367 million in 2024, compared with $481 million in 2023. This represents a year-on-year decline of 24%, again explained by changes in the portfolio position at the time of the transition to IFRS 17.

Credit losses 

As in previous quarters, BMO had to increase the provision for credit losses for the quarter ended October 31, 2024. This amounted to $1.5 billion, compared with $446 million in the same quarter of 2023.

Over the past 12 months, the provision for credit losses totaled $3.8 billion, compared with $2.2 billion a year earlier.

The provision for impaired loans reached $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $408 million in the same period of fiscal 2023. For the full year, the provision totaled $3.1 billion, compared with $1.2 billion in 2023.

BMO reports that provisions are up in all of the company's business units. This is mainly due to deterioration in the corporate and commercial loan portfolio in the United States, as well as in the unsecured segments of the customer loan portfolio in Canada.