TD has established its position in the US much more than BNS, and BNS is currently playing some level of 'catch up'. BNS has recently announced its strategic shift to re-focus its business on North America, rather than Latin America, and we feel that on sentiment alone, this can help support BNS shares in the short-term. TD has outperformed BNS over the short and long-term, and this is largely reflective of its presence in the US as opposed to Latin America. The benefit of BNS having operations in South America was its diversification, as this provided diversification for Canadian investors that owned some of the other Canadian bank stocks.
With that said, BNS still has its benefits today. It trades at a relatively cheap valuation, offers a higher yield than TD (6.7% vs. 4.7%, respectively), and is a high-quality name now with a revised strategic focus. We would be comfortable with either name, and for a currently higher growth name, we would be comfortable with a swap to TD.