Two months into the mortgage deferral program, the six major Canadian banks are seeing the pace of mortgage-deferral requests easing up. The program gave homeowners a break from making payments amid the current challenging circumstances.

Almost 600,000 requests for mortgage deferrals or skipped payments have been completed or are being processed since the announcement of the program on March 17th. Approximately 213,000 requests were handled in just the first nine days of the program, and total requests reached 500,000 after 17 days.

In my opinion, the banks’ initial response was unparalleled. It allowed homeowners to catch their breath and take stock of their finances admit workplace reductions, furloughs, and layoffs.

Canada’s six largest banks have deferred approximately 12% of the mortgages in their combined portfolios so far, and small and midsize banks have also deferred a significant number of the mortgages on their books. Some banks have even reported that more than 90% of those seeking a deferral are approved.

The federal government’s $25-billion Canada Emergency Business Account has shown strong pickup, with the country’s five biggest banks approving more than 72,000 loans for small-business clients on the program’s first day. That’d be worth about $2.89 billion in loans, assuming clients took up the full $40,000 of interest-free government-backed loans offered to them.