Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank has higher exposure to the embattled US commercial property market than many of its investors believe, a new report suggests, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.

While the poor state of the commercial real estate sector has been seen as a lesser problem for Canadian banks than for banks in the US, TD's filings with US regulators suggest it has about $19.5-billion in exposure, versus the roughly $12-billion that the bank disclosed in a recent presentation to shareholders, the publication quoted Hamilton Capital, a new Toronto-based boutique asset manager specializing in financial services, as saying.

To date, Canadian banks have appeared to have fared relatively well in the credit crisis compared with their southern neighbours.

The difference in exposures appears to come from the way TD classifies the loans it makes on owner-occupied premises, such as a factory where the owner has a commercial mortgage against the building, the report said.

A spokesman for the bank said the US filings are not an extension of TD's formal corporate disclosure record, the report added.