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The 'Royal Bank of Canada' ('Banque Royale du Canada' in French) (, ) is Canada's largest company.^[1] It has over 1,400 branches across Canada, over 70,000 full-and part-time employees worldwide, and offices in over 34 countries.
Its master brand is now 'RBC' and that name is used on all its business units, which are collectively known as 'RBC Financial Group'. In Canada, the bank is branded as 'RBC Royal Bank', a combination of its new master brand and its traditional Canadian brand. Examples include RBC Capital Markets, full service investment brokerage firm RBC Dominion Securities, and online investment site 'RBC Direct Investing'. RBC also has a large retail banking presence in the southeastern United States, marketing itself there as 'RBC Centura'.
RBC is incorporated in Montreal in its formal headquarters at Place Ville Marie, but now, all the decisions are made out of Toronto at the Royal Bank Plaza. RBC ranks number 83 on the Forbes Global 2000 list (2006 edition). Its market cap fluctuates at around CAD$ 63.7 billion as of October 31, 2006.

Contents

Timeline

International timeline

Competition

Logo

Corporate governance

History of Head Offices

Media attention

Memberships

References

External links

Historical bank notes

Timeline

★ 1864 - Merchants Bank founded in Halifax

★ 1869 - Changed named to Merchants' Bank of Halifax

★ 1869 - Federal charter received

★ 1870 - 1880s - Expansion in Maritime Provinces

★ 1901 - Name changed to Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

★ 1907 - Head Office moved from Halifax to Montreal

★ 1910 - Merged with Union Bank of Halifax

★ 1912 - Merged with Traders Bank of Canada

★ 1917 - Merged with Quebec Bank

★ 1918 - Merged with Northern Crown Bank

★ 1925 - Merged with Union Bank of Canada

★ 1993 - Merged with Royal Trust

★ 2000 - Merged merchant credit/debit card acquiring business with BMO Bank of Montreal's to form Moneris Solutions

★ 2006 - Created Institutional Investment Joint Venture with Dexia. It is a 50/50 Partnership called RBC Dexia Investor Services. [1]

International timeline

RBC has carved out a name for itself as a leader in the Caribbean region. 'RBC Royal Bank' maintains a profitable base from its Caribbean operations, and has retained high brand recognition among its other top competitors. RBC is especially known in the anglophone Caribbean for its various personal and business banking services in retailing, loans, and credit offerings.

★ 1882 - Bermuda office opens

★ 1899 - RBC opens an agency in New York and a branch in Havana.

★ 1903 - Buys Banco de Oriente de Santiago de Cuba. By the mid-1920s, RBC has 65 branches in Cuba and is the largest bank in the country.

★ 1904 - Buys Banco del Commercio de Havana.

★ 1907 - Opens a branch in San Juan, Puerto Rico; branches in Mayagüez and Ponce follow.

★ 1909 - RBC established a branch in Nassau, Bahamas.

★ 1910 - Opens a branch in London and acquires a branch in Trinidad as a result of its acquisition of Union Bank of Halifax.

★ 1911 - Opens branches in Jamaica and Barbados.

★ 1912 - Opens a branch in British Honduras and another in the Dominican Republic; three more follow

★ 1913 - Opens a branch in Grenada

★ 1914 - Opens a branch in British Guiana. Buys out Bank of British Guiana and Bank of Honduras.

★ 1915 - Opens branches in Costa Rica, Antigua, Dominica, and St. Kitts

★ 1916 - Opens a branch in Venezuela

★ 1917 - Opens branches in Nevis, Montserrat, and Tobago

★ 1918 - Opens a branch in Barcelona, and another in Vladivostok that lasts less than a year.

★ 1919 - Opens branches in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paris, Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti

★ 1920 - Opens a branch in Colombia and St. Lucia

★ 1925 - Opens a branch in Peru, and acquires the American-owned, and failed, Bank of Central and South America. The purchase of BCSA brings with it subsidiaries, and their branches, in Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, and Venezuela

★ 1940 - Branches in Martinique and Guadaloupe close

★ 1960 - The Castro regime acquires the RBC's operations in Cuba

★ 1970s - As a result of Law 75, RBC's operations in Colombia become Banco Royal Colombiano.

★ 1980 - Purchases Banco de San Juan in Puerto Rico, adding its 14 branches to the six that RBC already has in Puerto Rico.

★ 1985 - RBC starts to withdraw from much of the Caribbean. It sells its 12 branches in the Dominican Republic to Banco de Comercio Dominicano. It also sells its stake in Royal Bank (Jamaica) to Jamaica Mutual Life Assurance. Furthermore, the Government of Guyana nationalizes its operations there and renames the bank Republic Bank. Additionally the RBC operations in Trinidad and Tobago are floated there and become known as the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, Ltd.

★ 1986 - RBC sells its two branches in Haiti to Societe Generale Haitienne de Banque, a local bank.

★ 1993 - RBC sells Royal Bank of Puerto Rico to Spain's Banco Bilbao-Vizcaya.

★ 1995 - RBC sold Royal Trust Bank (Austria) to Anglo Irish Bank, which renamed it Anglo Irish Bank (Austria).

★ 2001 - RBC acquires Centura bank based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

★ 2006 - RBC upgraded its representative Office in Beijing, China to a branch.
RBC now has a large retail banking presence in the southeastern United States, marketing itself there as 'RBC Centura'. RBC Centura has unveiled plans for a move of its headquarters to Raleigh. The bank has recently merged with Flag Bank, increasing its presence in Georgia. RBC continues to grow in the Southeast after acquiring 39 branches of AmSouth Bank in Alabama on March 09, 2007 (previously RBC Centura had no locations in this state)^[2].
RBC Centura experienced fraud problems in 1994 related to mortgages that were made to fictitious people and/or inflated appraisals. The estimated loss was $29,000,000.^[3]
The Carolina Hurricanes and NC State Wolfpack play in the RBC Center in Raleigh.

Competition

Main competitors are Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING, JP Morgan, Dresdner Kleinwort, Natixis, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia, and SunTrust among others. Major Canadian competitors in personal markets include TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Bank of Nova Scotia, and some credit unions.

Logo

The bank's symbol is a golden lion clutching a globe, on a blue background. An older version had a crown above the globe and had the lion facing to the left rather than the right. The change coincided with an expansion in United States markets.

Corporate governance

Edson Loy Pease (1856-1930), a Quebec native, was a chief executive and managing director of the bank and one of the key people in its history. An employee of the Merchants' Bank of Halifax, he built that bank's Quebec business to where Montreal became its centre of operations. His efforts saw the Bank formally relocate its head office in 1907 to St. James Street in Montreal following which he induced the prominent Montreal business magnate Herbert S. Holt to accept an appointment as the bank's new President. While at the time Holt's presidency was largely a ceremonial position, his name substantially raised the bank's profile and broadened its business connections.
The title of Royal Bank's top executive has changed several times. Initially it was styled as ''President''. Later, it became ''Chief Executive Officer'' and one often carried additional responsibilities as ''Chairman of the Board'', while the second-in-command was the ''President''. Allan R. Taylor was Chairman and CEO from 1986 to 1994, and he was succeeded by John Cleghorn in that capacity from 1994-2001. Gordon Nixon is currently the ''President and Chief Executive Officer'', as the bank decided to appoint a non-executive chairman after Cleghorn's retirement.
'President'

★ Thomas E. Kenny (1879-1908)

★ Herbert Samuel Holt (1908-1934)

★ Morris W. Wilson (1934-1946)

★ Sydney Dobson (1946-1949)

★ James Muir (1949-1960)

★ W. Earle McLaughlin (1960-1979)

★ Rowland C. Frazee (1977-1980)

★ Jock K. Finlayson (1980-1983)

★ Allan R. Taylor (1983-1986) - Chairman and CEO (1986-1994)

★ John E. Cleghorn (1986-2001) - Chairman and CEO (1994-2001)

★ Gordon Nixon (2001-present) - CEO
'Chairman'

★ David O'Brien 2004-present
Current members of the board of directors are: Geoffrey Beattie, George Cohon, Douglas Elix, John Ferguson, Paule Gauthier, Jacques Lamarre, Brandt Louie, Gordon Nixon, David O'Brien, Robert Peterson, Pedro Reinhard, Timothy Hearn, Kathleen Taylor, Victor Young, Michael McCain, Alice Labeige.

History of Head Offices

★ 1976-Present: Royal Bank Plaza, at 200 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario.

★ 1962-1976: Place Ville-Marie, at University Street & René-Levesque Blvd, Montreal, Québec.

★ 1928-1962: "Old Royal Bank Building, Montreal", at 360 Saint Jacques Street, Montreal, Québec.

★ 1907-1928: Four Pillars Building (now destroyed), at 147 Saint Jacques Street, Montreal, Québec.

★ 1864-1907: Merchants' Bank of Halifax Building, on Bedford Row, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
RBC's legal headquarters still remains in Montreal at Place Ville-Marie. However, all management operations were moved to its current location in Toronto at the Royal Bank Plaza, making this the company's functional headquarters.

Media attention

According to a global Newsweek ranking, which measures how effectively companies manage environmental risks and opportunities relative to their industry peers, Royal Bank of Canada is the most environmentally friendly company in the world.Global-Warming Ready, Newsweek, 8 April 2007, URL accessed 19 July 2007
On January 15, 2007, CBC Radio reported RBC is "refusing" people of certain nationalities to open U.S. dollar accounts with the bank.^[4] Canadian citizens with dual citizenship in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, North Korea or Sudan (mostly countries with U.S. sanctions) are affected. The U.S. Treasury Department restricts certain foreign nationals from using the U.S. dollar payment system to limit terrorism and money laundering after the September 11, 2001 attacks. RBC replied that the compliance with such laws do not represent an endorsement by the bank and on January 17, clarified its position on the application of the U.S. laws, specifying that "with some exceptions" it does open accounts for dual citizens of the sanctioned countries.^[5]

Memberships

RBC is a member of the Canadian Bankers Association '(CBA)' and registered member with the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation '(CDIC)', a federal agency insuring deposits at all of Canada's chartered banks. It is also a member of:

★ Interac

★ VISA International

★ MasterCard in the Caribbean markets

★ Plus Network

★ NYCE point of sale Network

★ CarIFS ATM Network

References

1. The FP500 has a new ruler
2. http://www.rbccentura.com/about/news/030907_amsouth.html
3. http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2004/08/16/story3.html
4. Royal Bank limiting accounts because of U.S. law
5. RBC issues clarification on U.S. dollar accounts


★ McDowall, Duncan. 1993. ''Quick to the Frontier: Canada's Royal Bank''. Royal Bank of Canada.

External links

★ RBC Financial Group

★ RBC Royal Bank

★ RBC Centura

★ RBC Dominion Securities

★ RBC Royal Bank of Canada (Caribbean and Bahamas)

★ RBC Global Private Banking

★ RBC stock chart

Historical bank notes

★ 1920 Trinidad and Tobago banknote (front) - Example of Royal Bank Caribbean banknotes

★ 1920 Trinidad and Tobago banknote (back) - Example of Royal Bank Caribbean banknotes

★ 1938 Saint Kitts banknote (front) - Example of Royal Bank of Canada banknotes

★ 1938 Saint Kitts banknote (back) - Example of Royal Bank of Canada banknotes