Craig Sebastiano is a personal finance writer based in Toronto. He was previously the managing editor at Ratehub.ca and has written about credit cards, mortgages, banking, investing and investment ...

The prime rate is a base rate set by Canadian banks to determine the variable interest rates they can charge on lending products, such as mortgages and loans. Many or all of the products featured ...

So the banks subsequently raise their prime rates to help cover costs by charging clients more interest. Similarly, when the BoC drops the overnight rate, banks will often lower their prime rates.