Zag Bank was a Canadian

direct bank A direct bank (sometimes called a branch-less bank or virtual bank) is a bank that offers its services only via the Internet, email, and other electronic means, often including telephone, online chat, and mobile check deposit. A direct bank has no ...

owned by

Desjardins Group The Desjardins Group (french: Mouvement Desjardins) is a Canadian financial service cooperative and the largest federation of credit unions (french: caisses populaires) in North America. It was founded in 1900 in Lévis, Quebec by Alphonse Des ...

. Zag was founded as Bank West in

High River High River is a town within the Calgary Metropolitan Region of Alberta, Canada. It is approximately south of Calgary, at the junction of Alberta Highways 2 and 23. High River had a population of 14,324 in 2021. History The community take ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

in 2002 and acquired by Desjardins in 2011 along with the other Western Financial Group companies. Desjardins announced on November 5, 2018 the winding down of operations for Zag Bank effective 2019.

History

The Western Financial Group initially focused on insurance consolidation, but expanded into banking in 2002, when Bank West was established. The bank maintained offices in High River and

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

. The bank acquired Ubiquity Bank in November 2007 and Agrifinancial in February 2009. In 2010, Western Financial was acquired by the

and the transaction was completed in 2011. In 2014, the Desjardins Group changed the name of Bank West to Zag Bank. On 5 November 2018, Zag Bank announced the end of all remaining operations by the second quarter of 2019.

References

{{Canadian banks Defunct banks of Canada Companies based in Calgary Desjardins Group 2011 mergers and acquisitions 2019 disestablishments in Alberta Online banks 2002 establishments in Alberta Banks established in 2002 Banks disestablished in 2019

History

See also

References