Canada 's Leading Financial Institution

RBC financial, a full service bank in Canada is facing fierce competition from leading financial institutes and new niche-market entrants after deregulation, the bank is also struggling with its 7th ranking out of 8 among financial institutions in the bank’s internal value for money study.

“The Bank of Canada immediately took over bank note operations from the Department of Finance. Offices of the Receiver General across the country became agencies of the new central bank. The Foreign Exchange and Securities Divisions started work right away, and a Research Division was established to advise on financial developments and business conditions” (Watts, G., & Rymes, T., 1993, p.9). Vardy, J. states in the “The Bank of Canada: An illustrated history” that the Bank of Canada was “privately owned with shares (at a par value of $50) sold to the public. Soon after the Bank began operations, a new government introduces an amendment to the Bank of Canada Act to nationalize the institution. In 1938, the privately held shares were purchased by the government and the Bank became entirely publically owned” (Watts, G., & Rymes, T., 1993, p.9) as it remains today.

Throughout history the Canadian and American banking systems have always taken separate approaches to the financial sector. There are many factors that influence the differences between the banking systems, some of which including their banking regulations, customer base and the chosen style of banking. All the factors presented have influenced the results of the banking sectors in both countries. Both systems have pros and cons, however the argument presented will reflect and support the benefits and success of the Canadian banking system and its ability to support the Canadian economy throughout the country’s history.

CIBC as it is commonly called is the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. It is one of the Big Five banks; a name given to the five largest banks that dominate the banking industry of Canada, it is the fifth largest bank and came into existence as a result of the merging of two chartered banks The Canadian Bank of Commerce (established 1867) and the Imperial Bank of Canada (established 1875) which happened on June 1,1961 and has its head quarter located at commerce court in the city of Toronto, Ontario. CIBC has been able to launch branches all around the country and has also expanded to other countries internationally such as United States, Asia, Europe, Australia among others. It became the first chartered bank to launch a mobile banking iPhone

TD Bank, have over 85, 000 employees and over 22 million clients worldwide. In Canada itself, the bank operates as TD Canada Trust and serves over 11 million with more than 1,160 branch locations. The company is ranked as number 66 on the Forbes Global 2000 and in the listings of Canada’s top 100 Employers in Maclean’s and in the Greater Toronto’s Top Employer’s according to Toronto Star (Wikipedia).

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is an organization within the financial services industry. The organization is known to be one of the biggest banks in Canada and the world. Services that RBC provides to its clients are known as their five business segments. The five business segments include personal and commercial banking, wealth management, investor and treasury services, capital markets, and insurance. The corporation approximately has 81,000 employees working for them on a full and part time basis. Currently, RBC has 16 million clients throughout Canada and the United States.

RBC is one of the 5 top competing banks in Canadian financial market. The 5 top banks: RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC and Scotia bank. The financial industry is highly determined by these top 5 banks making 85% of the total market. The strongest position to compete with RBC belongs to Toronto Dominion bank, TD. TD was the only bank that was able to grow its market share from 26% to 33% between 2000 and 2011. TD has achieved this growth due to aggressive approach to enhance customer service. However, RBC remains competitive and successful by utilizing profitable and market-friendly strategies. The bank offers is the most attractive interest rates in Canada for saving accounts, the bank offers net-worth specific services for clients, designed to provide

The Bank of Nova Scotia, commonly referred as “Scotiabank,” is one of the largest banks of Canada. It was founded in 1832 in Halifax by local merchants and citizens. They wanted a public bank, owned by shareholders and authorized by the government and that could provide currency for trade transactions. The bank operates in three business lines: personal banking, commercial banking, and wealth management.” Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange as “BNS”. It serves 23 million customers with a team of more than 88,000 employees and assets of $896 billion (as at October 31, 2016) (scotiabank, n.d.)

According to the RBC’s Code of Conduct, “We will always earn the right to be our clients’ first choice.” The bank has made clients as its first choice. RBC has trained its staff to prefer clients’ need above their own needs. The staff listens to the requirement of the client with compassion, and provides the service as per the customers need. It maintains a respectful, clear, and fair relation with its customers, it never mislead its customers by providing incorrect

1. At the start of the 21st century, RBC was Canada’s leading bank and largest bank in terms of assets and market capitalization. It was a full-service bank with five main lines of business: personal and commercial banking, insurance, wealth management, corporate / investment banking, and transaction processing. The commercial bank of RBC (Royal Bank) accounted for nearly 50% of the company’s net income and had an extensive delivery network with branches, Automated Banking Machines (ABM’s), point of sale terminals, mobile sales staff, and 1.4 million online banking customers and 2 million phone customers. The bank also had an extremely strong international network.

The Scotiabank is one of the world’s most popular banks in North America and is located in Canada, Halifax. Founded in 1832, Scotiabank came to be the second largest bank in Canada. A year after its development, Scotiabank paid out its first dividend to shareholders. Having marked the method in history, it was carried out through the golden era to the modern era and is yet continued to this day. Scotiabank provides innovative financial products and services to individual customers, small/medium sized business, corporations and governments across the world.

The Bank of Canada has been in existence since the early 1930’s. At that time it was realized that our economy needed guidance and would exist “to regulate credit and currency in the best interest of the economic life of the nation.”

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is the largest bank in Canada based on market capitalization. The bank was founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1864 with the name, Merchants’ Bank of Halifax. Throughout the years, it has expanded globally through their offices in Canada, the U.S. and 49 other countries around the world. Royal Bank entered the 1990’s financially stable regardless of the severe economic challenges of the 1980’s. This allowed them to make strategic acquisitions of companies which paved the way for their transformation from retail bank to global financial services.

As major players in Canada 's financial industry, the banks serve millions of customers. They include individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, large corporations, governments, institutional investors and non-profit organizations.

J.P. Morgan Private Bank was one of the most successful banking services globally. It offered high-end financial products and services with professional risk management team. In financial crisis, the Private Bank successfully survived with relatively great performance. This paper would exposit the key to their success of risk management by answering six questions.