Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), founded in 1864, is the largest global financial institution in Canada. The bank has 89,000 full- and part-time employees with 17 million clients in Canada, the United States, and twenty-seven other countries. RBC provides personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services, and capital markets products and services on a global basis.

RBC began as the Merchants Bank of Halifax in 1864 on the Halifax waterfront and provided credit to tradesmen importing and exporting through the port. It was founded by a small group of maritime trade merchants as a private, unchartered commercial bank that assisted them in daily business activities. There were eight founding members, and these included prominent names such as Thomas Kinnear, Edward Kenny, and William Cunard.

In 1869, after Canada's Confederation, the bank received its official federal charter and became a public company, with an initial capital of $300,000. The company then began growing rapidly and opened offices in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

In 1882, Merchants Bank opened its first international branch in Hamilton, Bermuda, and in 1899, it opened locations in Havana, Cuba, and New York. These expansions were prompted by close ties between the port of Halifax and the West Indies through trade in sugar and rum. The Bermuda and Havana branches were among the first in a series of seventy-two branches in Cuba and the West Indies by 1926.

In 1887, they opened a Montreal office, while also establishing relationships with Chase National in New York and the Bank of Scotland in London, England. Two years later, they opened an office in Vancouver, the first branch in Western Canada. And in 1893, the Merchants Bank of Halifax listed its stock for trading on the Montreal Exchange.

In 1901, Merchant's Bank officially changed its name to The Royal Bank of Canada. At this time, RBC had sixty-four branches across the country, and in 1907, the decision was made by shareholders to move the bank's head office from Halifax to Montreal, where the bank's current general manager was located. The next year, the board of directors elected Canadian businessman Herbert Holt of Montreal as bank president and by the end of the year established branches in every provincial capital.

RBC's next big move came in 1910, and in 1912, it merged with the Union Bank of Halifax and the Traders Bank of Canada, respectively. Five years later, RBC merged with Northern Crown Bank, a move that gave them a strong presence in Western Canada.

In 1914, 1,495 RBC bank employees enlisted in World War I, and 191 were killed in battle. During this time, the total number of employees was 2,832, so the overall employee count was greatly affected.

The following decades included one of the bank's largest growth spurts. In 1925, they took over the struggling Union Bank of Canada in Winnipeg, adding 327 branches and $115 million in deposits to its business. This deal marked the largest bank transaction to date in the country.

After a brief struggle during the Great Depression, RBC became known as the lead developer of Canada's oil, gas, and resource exploration business as a result of World War II.

In October 1970, RBC partnered with Chase Manhattan Bank, England's National Westminster Bank, and Germany's Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale to create Orion Bank. The purpose of the partnership was to help manage RBC's growing Eurodollar business of international deposits and loans. There was so much growth that in 1981, RBC bought out its partners.

In 1992, the federal government amended the Bank Act to allow them to own trust companies. RBC then obtained Royal Trustco Ltd, the country's largest money management firm, from Trilon Financial Corporation in 1993 for 1.65 billion.

Throughout the next seven years, RBC acquired Voyageur Insurance Company, Westbury Canadian Life Insurance Company, the Mutual of Omaha Life Insurance's Canadian operations, and Liberty Life. In 1998, RBC and the Bank of Montreal announced their agreement to merge. However, at the beginning of January 1999, the Minister of Finance—the position that must approve of any changes of bank ownership—declined the merger, stating that it would reduce price competition and not be in the best interest of Canadians.

Following the voiding of the merger between RBC and the Bank of Montreal, RBC began looking at banks outside of Canada for acquisition opportunities. At the turn of the century, RBC announced its purchase of Dain Rauscher Wessels for $1.45 billion. It then merged this firm into the Boston and San Francisco-based brokerage firm Tucker Anthony Sutro in 2002.

In 2016, RBC announced they were selling Aviva Canada Inc. for $582 million. Six years later, RBC announced its plan to purchase HSBC Bank Canada for $13.5 billion. Under this agreement, RBC is said to have acquired 100% of the common shares of HSBC Bank Canada. This acquisition is stated to be the largest domestic bank deal on record and is scheduled to close in late 2023.

Prior to the twentieth century, the bank's logo reflected the founders—the maritime merchants. The logo included a modern, three-mast sailing ship with an auxiliary engine, allegedly belonging to one of the bank's original directors, William Cunard.

The logo was revised to include the bank's new name, The Royal Bank of Canada, in 1901. The focal point of the logo was the "royal" name, with a lion, the symbol of strength and authority, a unicorn, and a crown visible in the center of the seal.

In 1962, RBC introduced its first true logo, with a heraldic motif, that would be effective on top of a building or on a savings account passbook. Two design elements were retained from the 1901 seal: the lion and the crown. Also added to the new logo was the globe to demonstrate the bank's worldwide presence.