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Ban on banks’ online activities confirmed     (Copyright Thompson’s World Insurance News     Not to be redistributed by individual recipients.)     Canada’s banks will soon be officially out of the online insurance business.     Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has confirmed he will introduce legislation to ban the banks from promoting p&c and life insurance on the Internet.     “These measures were made necessary by the evolving use of technology by banks,” he said.     The rules would distinguish between authorized insurance products, such as credit and travel-related insurance, and non- authorized products such as life and p&c insurance.     The regime would prohibit the promotion of — or links to —non-authorized insurance from all banking web pages. It would allow only the corporate web page of a bank, where no financial products are promoted, to display links to insurance subsidiaries dealing in non-authorized insurance.     “It’s the decision we were looking for because it’s the right one for consumers,” said Steve Masnyk of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada.     “The minister is to be recognized for extending consumer protection to the Internet, as this is simply an extension of the branch.     The banks are not as happy.     “Our position has always been that consumers benefit when there is choice and competition in the insurance market, and we are concerned when restrictions on that choice and competition harm consumers’ interests,” a spokesperson from the Canadian Bankers Association said.     More in our June 7 2010 edition        Thompson’s World Insurance News P.O. Box 1027,  Waterloo, Ontario,  Canada  N2J 4S1 Tel: 519-579-2500 Fax: 519-745-7321 mpub@sympatico.ca THOMPSON’S WORLD INSURANCE NEWS , Canada’s only independent weekly for p&c insurance professionals, has been the industry’s most trusted news source since 1988.