The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that bank dividend yields are not what they used to be. The Globe's David Berman writes that when the Bank of Canada was raising its key interest rate in 2022 and 2023, bank stocks delivered yields up to 7 per cent. Now, after a series of rate cuts over the past 18 months and steadily rising share prices, the average yield on a Big Six bank has shrivelled to just 3.5 per cent. The good news: Bank of Nova Scotia's yield is a full percentage point above this average, at 4.6 per cent. The yield is also the highest yield among the lender's peers and nearly two percentage points above Royal Bank of Canada and National Bank of Canada. That means investors are getting paid more to hold Scotiabank shares. It also means the stock is relatively inexpensive, since a dividend yield can be a measure of valuation. A high yield can point to a cheap stock if that dividend is sustainable. Scotiabank is also cheaper than its peers based on price-to-earnings ratios. It trades at a 9-per-cent discount to the group average. Over the past five years, through the end of November, Scotiabank's share price gained 53 per cent. That is about half the gain of its five peers over the same period.