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The UK should “team up” with a proposed economic alliance between Canada and Europe, Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne has said.

“This is all about the substance, to build an alliance of the future,” he told the BBC. “The world has changed. America has changed. So we need to change.”

Champagne also gave a frank assessment of the Canada-US trade war after a deal collapsed last month, saying the country had “stood up for our industries, our workers, our country” by imposing tariffs.

His comments come after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed “opening the door” to an associate EU membership for Canada, an unprecedented move for the bloc.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to address the European Union in Strasbourg, shortly after von der Leyen’s proposal was made, was “to build the alliance of the future”, Champagne said.

Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England, has previously talked about an alliance of “middle powers” working together on economic growth, resilience and security.

Speaking to the BBC, Champagne said the UK and Canada had shared values.

“We need to look at partnership in a different way, and the great thing is that when you look at Canada, and I would say the United Kingdom, we share the same values. We are very aligned in our vision of the world. Why don’t we team up?” he said.

“We are independent and sovereign, but we are stronger together.”

After his return to the White House last year, US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping global tariffs, including on long-standing trade allies such as the UK.

While the UK renegotiated a trade deal with the US in June last year, the new Canada-EU alliance does raise questions for the UK’s post Brexit positioning with Europe, as well as its position with the US, after some changes of presidential rhetoric over the Falklands and Irish unity in recent weeks.

Carney met Prime Minister Andy Burnham in Liverpool in the middle of his trip to Brussels and Strasbourg last week, while Champagne attended a meeting of EU finance ministers in Dublin on Friday, alongside the Chancellor John Healey.

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The inflows, which at $14.5 billion were second only to the $17.88 billion that ICICI Bank mobilised under the special FCNR (Bank) facility, give new resources to lend and expand the wealth management business, said Sandeep Batra, its managing director and head of wealth and personal banking in India.

Also Read: Banks plan to align norms for project finance lending

The leverage option of up to 19 times – depositors could borrow 19 times the money they deposited – that the bank offered helped attract depositors, Batra told ET in an interview. Half the deposits were for five years.

“We have a plan in place, and we are doubling down on whatever capability we need to develop,” Batra said. “FCNR (B) is one catchment…we are also opening 12 more branches.”

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Banks combined mobilised $127.22 billion through FCNR (B) deposits in less than three months until the central bank-driven dollar mop-up exercise closed on August 31, the RBI said earlier this month. HSBC offered deposits ranging from $100,000 to $2.5 million, with a leverage up to 19 times, mostly financed through its branch in Gift City, Gujarat. Out of the $52.8 billion loaned through the Gift City international financial services centre, HSBC accounted for $10.9 billion.
Also Read: FinMin to meet PSB, RRB chiefs on Monday to ensure banking services during 3-day strikeGlobally, the Middle East was the top contributor to the bank’s FCNR (B) scheme, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong. Deposits came from more than 30 markets, Batra said. “We were fully prepared from an NRI reach perspective, number of relationship managers, our focus on the global Indian with, of course, the size and scale of our brand,” he said.

The fact that the bank has an ongoing six-year-old operation in Gift City gave it an advantage, he said.

“We already have clients in thousands in Gift (City). We will pay out interest every six months, which our clients can invest in a range of funds. Clients can make fresh deposits or use our multiple forex cards to spend money,” Batra said. “We also have a 7.5%, three-year fixed mortgage, which is attractive in a rising rate scenario.”

HSBC offered a flat 5.5% interest on three- to five-year deposits. The lending rate was 5% to 5.15%, or 35-50 basis points below the deposit rate. How much clients could borrow depended on their credit profile. After taking into account the leverage, the delivered yield for clients was 10-14%.

Batra said one-third of the clients onboarded during the 52-day RBI window were credit appraised, which would be a force multiplier for the bank’s wealth management business across the board.

In wealth management, HSBC offers services to clients starting with ₹50 lakh of assets to up to $2 million (₹ 80 crore) for private banking clients. With a retail broking business now likely to be started later this year, the bank has a full suite of products to offer to its wealthy clients, Batra said.

The bank plans to use the liquidity generated through the FCNR scheme conservatively, he said. “We are finding deployment tools; those deployment tools should be corporate lending, which is match funded, and mortgages like the three-year fixed product, which we launched recently. Some of it could be deployed into government securities. So, it will be a combination.”