National Bank of Canada

National Bank of Canada provides various financial products and services to retail, commercial, corporate, and institutional clients in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, and savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services comprise credit, and deposit and investment solutions, as well as international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services. The Wealth Management segment comprises investment solutions, trust services, banking services, lending services, and other wealth management solutions. The Financial Markets segment offers corporate banking, advisory, and capital markets services; and project financing, debt, and equity underwriting; advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, and financing. The U.S. Specialty Finance and International segment provides specialty finance products; financial products and services to individuals and businesses in Cambodia; and investment solutions, guaranteed investment certificates, mutual funds, notes, structured products, and monetization. It provides its services through a network of 384 branches and 927 banking machines. National Bank of Canada was founded in 1859 and is based in Montreal, Canada.

In 1859, francophone businessmen in Ontario and Quebec were keen to establish a bank under their local control, and persuade the provincial legislature to pass the act that created the Banque Nationale on May 4, 1859. Some members of the anglophone bourgeoisie participated in the bank's share capital, but francophones retained exclusive control and held all seats on the board of directors with Ulric-Joseph Tessier, lawyer and Member of the Legislative Assembly serving as chairman of the bank.

The bank suffered losses during the banking crisis sparked by the financial panic of 1873 and panic of 1884 but managed to survive and continued to operate. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, Banque Nationale again came under financial stress; this time a merger was arranged with Banque d’Hochelaga assisted by the province's legislature to strengthen the bank. The merged bank was renamed "Banque Canadienne Nationale" .

In 1968, BCN, in conjunction with a number of other banks, launched Chargex, the first credit card to be issued by a Canadian bank.

During the 1970s, Quebec-based rival Provincial Bank of Canada expanded rapidly through a number of acquisitions. It merged with the People's Bank in 1970, with the Toronto-based Unity Bank of Canada, and in 1979 it acquired Laurentide Financial Corporation of Vancouver. Provincial Bank and BCN continued to expand but continued to have a large part of their operations concentrated in Quebec. In November 1979, these two banks decided to merge under the new name "National Bank of Canada" in what was at the time one of the largest bank mergers.

Through the 1980s the bank continued to grow and expand its businesses through a number of acquisitions, including the brokerage firm Lévesque Beaubien and a year later Geoffrion Leclerc, which became known as Lévesque Beaubien Geoffrion. In 1993, it sold its lease financing operations to GE Capital and acquired the assets of General Trust of Canada.

In 1994, it made a small step outside Canada when it opened two branches in the United States, one in Florida and one in California. As of 2020, its Natbank subsidiary has three branches, all in Florida. In 1995 the bank opened a representative office in Cuba to assist Canadian clients doing business in the country. In 1999 it concluded its purchase of First Marathon, a Toronto-based brokerage firm. First Marathon and the Bank's subsidiary Lévesque Beaubien Geoffrion Inc. merged their operations to form National Bank Financial , its investment banking subsidiary. In 2002 it acquired US-based investment bank Putnam Lovell and merged the operations with its NBF subsidiary which started operating through offices in New York, Toronto, and London.

In March 2006, it sold its shareholder management services to Computershare.In 2016, it acquired 90 percent of the shares of ABA Bank of Cambodia . In 2019, it acquired the remaining 10 percent that had been held by a former head of the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, Damir Karassayev.In October 2019, National Bank of Canada was criticized by privacy experts for requiring new online customers to provide their full login credentials for accounts with other financial institutions, including password. On its website, the bank tells clients to "Never tell anyone your password", yet during the process of creating an account, they say, "... you will need to provide... your login credentials with another eligible Canadian financial institution".

National Bank Investments Inc. (NBI) is an investment fund management firm committed to manufacturing and distributing mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, investment solutions and services designed to help Canadian investors pursue their financial goals. National Bank Investments Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of National Bank of Canada.

Our visionis to be a client-centric, top-tier Canadian asset manager, dedicated to creating value.