VersaBank is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The Bank started as Pacific Western Trust Corporation (often known as Pacific & Western Trust) in Saskatoon, SK and received its certificate of incorporation on June 11, 1979. It was granted a licence to operate on October 12, 1979.
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“The model has evolved and changed to deal with market conditions over the years, but we’re still providing innovative financial solutions to profitably address underserved segments of the Canadian banking market.”
In the early 1990s, recognizing the potential for technology to transform the way Canadian small and medium-size businesses do banking, current VersaBank President and CEO David Taylor had a vision to create a new kind of financial institution, a branchless bank. Taylor purchased Pacific & Western Trust in 1993, which provided him with an operating licence and CDIC insurance, two elements that were necessary to launch a new, branchless banking platform. In less than a year, Taylor had established the world’s first branchless financial institution – and the foundation for Canada’s “Bank of the Future” – continually evolving its proprietary technology to efficiently and profitably address unmet needs in the Canadian financial market.
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In 2002, the now well-established financial institution was granted a Schedule I Bank licence, the first in 18 years, at the time, becoming one of just 9 Canadian financial institutions with such a licence, significantly enhancing its competitive advantage and enabling it to expand its business throughout Canada. As the Bank grew and evolved, its name was rebranded to VersaBank, reflecting its versatility as a branchless financial institution and one able to quickly adapt to an ever-changing environment by continuously developing in-house innovative products and services to respond to the needs of its niche clients and to better position them to compete successfully. In 2013, public investors were able to participate in the future success of VersaBank when it was listed on the TSX.
“Canada was dominated by a few very large banks and had some niche markets that weren’t very well served,” explains Taylor. “I knew we could create an innovative bank without a need for branches that leveraged sophisticated software and technology to serve these lucrative markets that were being ignored or woefully underserved.”
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