The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that Canadians are grappling with "payment shock" and Americans are not, and that will put the two countries' economies on diverging paths to start 2024, according to Royal Bank of Canada CEO Dave McKay. The Post's Denise Paglinawan quotes Mr. McKay telling Bloomberg TV, "The U.S. economy struggled to slow the consumer, while the Canadian economy has slowed the consumer quite significantly." The RBC chief executive officer was speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The main culprit, Mr. McKay said, is the differing payment terms for mortgages in the two countries. Canada does not have 30-year fixed mortgage contracts as they do in the U.S., with most homeowners instead having contracts that must be renewed at prevailing rates every five years, or are variable-rate. That means heavily indebted Canadian households are being hit with higher mortgage payments, with 30 per cent of mortgage holders already facing 20- to 25-per-cent hikes in their monthly outlays, he said. Mr. McKay added that the impact on consumers is already visible in the bank's credit card business, where spending is "off" for those who hold variable-rate mortgages.