Royal Bank of Canada history

By 1869 the Merchants' Bank was officially incorporated and received its federal charter in the same year.

Then from 1873 to the end of the decade, a business depression hit Nova Scotia's shipbuilding industry hard and kept the bank's growth slow.

Although this branch closed in 1889, the bank remained committed to international operations, opening several branches in Latin America before it was well established in western Canada.

By 1896, Merchants' Bank's assets totaled CAD 10 million.

In 1899 two more branches were established in New York and Havana.

In an effort to distinguish the bank from two other institutions with similar names, the bank was renamed The Royal Bank of Canada in 1901.

With this growth, the bank decided in 1907 to relocate from Halifax to Montreal, where the general manager was based.

In 1910, RBC merged with the Union Bank of Halifax.

1912 The Royal acquires the Traders Bank of Canada.

1917 The Quebec Bank is purchased.

In 1935, RBC merged with Crown Savings and Loan Co. merged with Industrial Mortgage & Trust Co.

1941 The Royal becomes Canada's largest bank by assets.

The bank continued its international expansion with the establishment of the Royal Bank of Canada Trust Company in New York in 1951 as well.

In 1962, almost 100 years after its founding, The Royal Bank of Canada adopted a new emblem to replace its original coat of arms.

By 1967 Royal Bank had written more than half of the residential mortgage loans provided by all of the chartered banks combined.

In 1968, it merged with Ontario Loan and Debenture Company (formerly Ontario Savings and Investment Society). RBC Insurance is the largest Canadian bank-owned insurance organization, with services to over five million people.

In 1979 Rowland Frazee, who had been with the bank for 40 years, was appointed chief executive officer.

In 1981 the bank acquired complete ownership of the Orion Bank, Ltd., a London investment bank.

In 1986 Allan Taylor became chairman and CEO of Royal Bank.

The Royal began negotiations with Wood Gundy, a leading Canadian brokerage firm, in the spring of 1987, some months before the law actually changed.

1988 Royal Bank acquires majority interest in Dominion Securities.

In 1991, however, RBC Dominion Securities was given permission to participate in stock underwriting by the United States Federal Reserve.

Also acquired in 1993 was Royal Trustco for $1.3 billion, a deal that increased the Royal's assets by about $1.1 billion, or 10 percent.

In late 1994, John Cleghorn, a 20-year Royal Bank veteran who had been president and chief operating officer, replaced Taylor as chairman and CEO. Under Cleghorn, the bank continued to acquire fee-based businesses.

After setting another profit record in fiscal 1998, CAD 1.82 billion, Royal Bank saw its profits fall slightly the following year as revenue increases failed to keep pace with rising expenses.

The bank spent $1.23 billion early in the year for Dain Rauscher Corporation, a regional, midsized brokerage firm based in Minneapolis that generated approximately $930 million in revenue in 1999.

Through this November 2000 deal, the bank took over Liberty Life Insurance Company and its 625 sales agents and Liberty Insurance Services Corporation, an administrator of third-party life and health insurance and a provider of underwriting, billing, and claims processing services.

The bank launched a plan to shave CAD 400 million off its annual expenses in part by cutting up to 6,000 jobs from the payroll by the end of 2001, mainly through attrition but also via a retirement program and layoffs.

During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004 RBC recorded charges of CAD 322 million to write down the value of the mortgage unit and to eliminate nearly 1,700 jobs from the RBC head office.

Despite these special items, RBC managed a fiscal 2005 profit of CAD 3.39 billion ($2.87 billion), another record for a Canadian bank and a 21 percent increase over the previous year.

An RBC branch in The Glebe neighbourhood of Ottawa was firebombed in May 2010.