This announcement comes on the heels of Scotiabank's announcement in July that it was the first bank in Canada to offer consumers the ability to open a personal chequing or savings account online in less than five minutes, and the bank's announcement in June that, through a partnership with Kabbage, Scotiabank can offer, approve, and fund, small business loans in as little as seven minutes to our existing customers.

"Our new online account opening experience for small business owners is easy to use, intuitive and fast. We engaged existing and potential customers throughout the design and build of this market-leading capability and are delighted with the outcome," said Laurent Mareschal, Senior Vice President, Small Business Banking at Scotiabank. "We know that for small business owners, wherever they bank today, business is personal, and time is incredibly important. Rapid online account opening is another way that Scotiabank is committed to helping these important and primary drivers of the Canadian economy to bank whenever, and wherever they need to."

Scotiabank also offers small business customers relevant tools, resources and leading products to support their business activities, such as:

• Mobile Cheque Deposit, enabling small business customers to take a picture of their cheque with their Smart Phone and deposit money right away; and,
• The popular "Right Size for Business" account, a convenient and flexible business account that enables small businesses to only pay for what they use -- when transaction volumes go up or down, fees automatically adjust to give customers the best value.

Customers who participated in the development of this new online account opening capability at Scotiabank said that the online account opening process was a strong addition to the line-up of services available:

• "It's really easy, the information is easy to follow. There's definitely simplicity, and it seems to go from personal, to business, to the needs of the business. It makes it a lot easier overall versus running through an application."
• "I found it really short, it was a breeze for me, it was very simple…It made me feel that it was too easy to be true."

About Scotiabank
Scotiabank is Canada's international bank and a leading financial services provider in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America, and Asia-Pacific. We are dedicated to helping our 23 million customers become better off through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of more than 88,000 employees and assets of $907 billion (as at July 31, 2016), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto (TSX: BNS) and New York Exchanges (NYSE: BNS). Scotiabank distributes the Bank's media releases using Marketwired. For more information, please visit www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @ScotiabankViews.

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For media enquiries only, please contact: 

Heather Armstrong 
Public, Corporate and Government Affairs 
Scotiabank 
T: (416) 933-3250 
M: (647) 632-4524
E: heather.armstrong@scotiabank.com