We believe Montreal-based Laurentian Bank of Canada's funding metrics have weakened, as reliance on unsecured wholesale funding has increased because loan growth has accelerated in the past couple of years more than for peers. We are revising our outlook on Laurentian Bank to negative from stable, to account for the bank's higher dependence on short-term wholesale funding (as we define it), which we view as a riskier and less-reliable funding source. The negative outlook also reflects the potential risks we believe could materialize from the bank's aggressive business growth (both organic and acquisitive), particularly in Business Services, which includes specialty lending to commercial segments such as equipment finance as well as lending to small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and B2B
