Province of Ontario Savings Office

The Province of Ontario Savings Office (POSO), a government-run banking institution, was created by the Ontario Government in 1922 and was closed in 2003 when its assets were sold to the Desjardins Credit Union.

The Savings Office was created by the United Farmers of Ontario government of Premier Ernest C. Drury to provide loans to farmers and other small borrowers who traditionally had limited access to credit, as well as to offer savings accounts paying interest on small deposits, something Canadian chartered banks at the time did not do.

POSO's authority to make loans was withdrawn by Premier Howard Ferguson's Conservative government that took office in 1923, and the institution's operations were effectively reduced to that of a government-run savings bank, offering savings, demand-deposit and term-deposit accounts at interest rates slightly higher than those available from commercial banks.

At the time of its closure, POSO had twenty-eight branches serving about 50,000 customers, approximately 100,000 accounts with deposits totalling about $CAD2.8B, and was responsible for coordinating the sale and distribution of Ontario Savings Bonds.

In the provincial budget of 2001, Ontario finance minister Jim Flaherty signalled the government's intention to sell POSO's assets to the private sector, announcing that the Province was "getting out of the banking business" as part of the government's privatization program to end "wasteful activities that could be eliminated".

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