—and I'm speaking specifically to the challenges that I'm seeing in the inner city. I'm not sure where the member has received his information from, but I'll speak specifically to Hamilton.
If we look back over the past 20 years, in 1995 we see there were no payday loan outlets in Hamilton, and 38 bank branches. There are now only 13 bank branches in all of lower Hamilton, and we have a disproportionate number of these payday loan companies, so much so that I answered to a motion at council that would seek to license them. For you to even begin to understand how many there are, some intersections have three or four payday loan companies. There's a distinction of what banking is. You have your traditional banks, which have left and typically gone to the strip malls in some of your suburbs, and then you have payday loan companies that are servicing our under-serviced communities.
It's still a very profitable business, make no mistake about it, and I'm not asking for charity here. I'm suggesting that there's a reason that the payday loan industry is ubiquitous across urban centres. The business case for them to be in rural centres is still present, and I still support that. I would suggest that what's missing in the reports, or perhaps maybe why I'm here today, is to present to you a compelling reason for why inner cities are seeing major mainstream bank flight. Accessibility of banking leaves people in a situation where they're overpaying for being under-serviced.