Euromoney hit the road in style during April, driving for eight hours in the snow to cover one story.

In frozen far northern Alberta, Euromoney meets perhaps the world’s least likely sovereign wealth fund, investing compensation settlement money for Canada’s Little Red River Cree Nation. It is rigorous, disciplined and sophisticated, and reminds us that sustainable finance has been around for centuries.

The acquisition of Bank of the West by Bank of Montreal is complementary and affordable, argues BMO’s chief executive Darryl White.

Royal Bank of Canada reckons it is in a good position to capitalize on opportunities in a rising rate environment – and has room to grow in investment banking.

It was another strong year for Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), which saw increased provisioning at the start of the pandemic but had good performance throughout and is now well placed to benefit from the post-crisis recovery. Once again it is Euromoney’s choice as Canada’s best bank.

TD Securities is far from being the biggest investment bank in Canada, but its performance in the awards period saw it post impressive gains in both its investment banking and markets businesses. After many years, it dislodges its bigger rival RBC Capital Markets to win Euromoney’s award for Canada’s best investment bank.

A history of patient investment meant Royal Bank of Canada was well-placed to navigate a turbulent year.

Canada’s biggest bank is a regular winner of the award for Canada’s best investment bank, but in 2020 it has clocked up another accolade for the first time since 2004.

Until the coronavirus crisis, it was a familiar year for RBC Capital Markets in the awards period. As usual, the bank faced strong individual competitors in almost every business, product or sector in which it operates, but no firm rivals it across the board.

Hedge funds and real money clients looking to shake up their FX trading strategy now have the option of basing their trades on proprietary market analysis from RBC.

The bank is penetrating deeper into its home markets to complement its long-standing international growth initiatives.

Canada has a clutch of big banks that dominate its financial services industry and competition is fierce in most segments. Few are able to compete across the whole spectrum, however. TD Bank is one that can, and the last 12 months marked another successful period for the firm, making it once again Canada’s best bank.

Canada’s investment banking franchises have had a challenging environment to deal with in 2018 and 2019. But RBC Capital Markets has weathered the situation well and is Canada’s best investment bank.

Protectionism is undermining an otherwise moderate global outlook as growth continues, labour markets tighten and geopolitical crises calm.

Macro and monetary policy factors are affecting some currencies more than traditional commodity triggers.

With asset prices high, RBC has made a virtue of a focus on the organic build of its footprint, with tech as important as ever.

Frequent issuers on both sides of the Atlantic are exploring new ways to concentrate their high-quality liabilities into fewer more-liquid bonds to avoid paying a premium as markets sell off.

Vancity is the largest credit union in Canada, but by 2007 it was acting like a commercial bank – yet now, after steering every part of the business back to being mission-based, it is delivering record profits, lower risk, new membership and improved employee engagement. Has it shown that the ‘triple bottom line’ of people-planet-profit can be achieved?

Rules-based order routing (RBOR) has become a useful tool for achieving increased trading efficiency, although it does not automatically guarantee best execution.

The Royal Bank of Canada is appealing a judge’s scathing verdict that it sacked a former trader in London for blowing the whistle on lax compliance, citing a ‘robust compliance culture’.

A senior currency trader fired from Royal Bank of Canada is taking the bank to task at an unfair dismissal hearing that includes accusations of sloppy trading, alleged bribery and an 'incoherent and inconsistent' global FX policy that he claims no one had bothered to read.

Canada's leading bank is increasingly leaning over its neighbour's fence

Banks are learning about the damage that being on the wrong side of environmental issues can cause.

A seventh year of record earnings in the fiscal period 2016 – and a first half of 2017 that promises another blockbuster year – saw TD Bank prove yet again that it is the franchise to beat in Canada. The firm’s unrivalled breadth and depth secure it Euromoney’s best bank in Canada award for another year.

Worsening conditions in the energy and commodity sectors were not enough to unsettle RBC Capital Markets in its continued dominance of the Canadian investment banking landscape, for which it again wins Euromoney’s best investment bank in Canada award. Cross-border work continues to be a big theme, with highlights including advising Enbridge on its $43.4 billion merger with Spectra Energy of the US, the largest ever acquisition by a Canadian firm, completed in March 2017. Smaller, but arguably more eye-catching for the way in which it showcased the bank’s ability to act across asset classes when needed, was its financing work for the $13 billion acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group by TransCanada Pipelines.

A seventh year of record earnings in the fiscal period 2016 – and a first half of 2017 that promises another blockbuster year – saw TD Bank prove yet again that it is the franchise to beat in Canada. The firm’s unrivalled breadth and depth secure it Euromoney’s best bank in Canada award for another year. CEO Bharat Masrani, who only assumed the top job in 2015, was characteristically understated in his assessment of the bank’s most recent two quarterly results, declaring himself “pleased” with the firm’s 14% year-on-year rise in earnings in the first quarter and noting that “all of our business segments performed well” in the second quarter – which saw an even more remarkable 22% rise.

Best bank in the Middle East Emirates NBD Best investment bank in the Middle East HSBC Best digital bank in the Middle East Emirates NBD Best bank for financing in the Middle East Citi Best bank for advisory in the Middle East Barclays Best bank for markets in the Middle East National Bank of Abu Dhabi Best bank for transaction services in the Middle East Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Best bank for wealth management in the Middle East Audi Private Bank Best bank for CSR in the Middle East Arab African International Bank Best bank for SMEs Bank of Alexandria Best bank transformation Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait Outstanding contribution to financial services Hisham Ezz Al Arab . Country Awards for Excellence 2016: Middle East Awards for Excellence Middle East press release

BEST BANK

After decades of steady growth for six big banks, the Canadian banking sector is fast consolidating. The old certainties have been undermined by the announcements of mergers between Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal in January and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto Dominion Bank in April. The rush to merge follows a global trend fuelled by the need to cope with increased competition, and was stimulated by the BankAmerica/NationsBank merger in the US. But unlike their US counterparts, RBC/BMO and CIBC/TD have to run the gauntlet of rigorous banking regulation, entrenched political conventions and hostile popular opinion.