Canada to the rescue! Canadian banks have been on something of a buying spree in the United States as of late. TD Bank made news with its $6.3 billion deal to buy Chrysler Financial. That followed the Bank of Monteal's deal to buy Marshall and Ilsley, a troubled Milwaukee-based bank, for $4.1 billion in stock. Earlier this year, TD Bank inked a smaller deal, to buy troubled lender South Financial Group for roughly $190 million. TD Bank is among several set to expand their footprint here in the United States.

The deal-making may not be over anytime soon. As European banks find themselves in dire straight and as U.S. banks continue to struggle, Canadian banks are a great option right now.

"Canada's banking system has been ranked the world's soundest for three straight years by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum," Bloomberg notes. "Lenders including Toronto-Dominion and Royal Bank of Canada withstood the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression without taking government bailouts, and recorded only a fraction of the $1.31 trillion in writedowns taken by banks and brokers worldwide."

The government nixed two mergers between four of Canada's top banks back in the 1990s, that left them looking for acquisitions in other countries. This is a great time for Canandian banks.

For more:
- here's the Bloomberg article

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