The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that Canada is no country for small banks, as seen by the 179-year-old Laurentian Bank announcing that it will be broken up and sold in pieces to National Bank and Fairstone Bank. Guest columnist John Turley-Ewart writes that Canada is missing out on fresh ideas and innovation. Revolut, a private global fintech company founded a decade ago in Britain, created an empire around its foreign-exchange application for mobile phones that helps consumers exchange currencies and transfer money affordably. Now its product range includes savings accounts, stock and cryptocurrency trading, and debit cards. It has 50 million users in 48 countries and about $30-billion (U.S.) in assets. It made $1.5-billion (U.S.) in net profit last year. It only secured a U.K. banking licence, permitting conventional banking services, in 2024. What this tells Canadians seeking more bank competition is that making it easier to start a bank is not the answer. It has not worked since the 1870s. More mergers between small domestic banks should continue to be encouraged to create bigger players with the capacity to do what Laurentian Bank could not: make the substantial investments needed to compete.