Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is a Canadian bank that provides personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services around the globe. The bank serves more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients in 37 countries. As of the fourth quarter of 2017, RBC held CAD 1,212 billion (€780 billion) assets under management.[1]

RBC does not provide financial services to companies manufacturing or trading in equipment or material for nuclear weapons.[2] Companies involved in maintenance and modernisation are not excluded.[3]

The policy applies to corporate credit granting and project finance. RBC also terminates existing loan contracts with nuclear weapon producers on a case-by-case basis. However, the policy does not cover RBC’s asset management activities.[4]

RBC does not make use of an exclusion list.[5]

RBC was also found to have several investments in nuclear weapon producing companies identified by this report, more information can be found in the Hall of Shame.

How to improve the policy:

We commend RBC for adopting a public policy on nuclear weapons. We recommend RBC apply its policy to all financial products including investment banking and asset management activities. Moreover, RBC should apply the policy to all nuclear weapons producing companies, including those  involved in modernisation. We look forward to assessing RBC’s update of its nuclear weapons policy and to engaging with RBC, so a strong and comprehensively applied policy may be listed in the Hall of Fame in a future update of this report.

[1] Royal Bank of Canada, “RBC at a Glance – Q4/2017”, website Royal Bank of Canada (http://www.rbc.com/investorrelations/pdf/rbcglance.pdf), viewed 23 January 2018.

[2] Royal Bank of Canada, “Royal Bank Of Canada 2012 Corporate Responsibility Report And Public Accountability Statement”, 2012, Page 59, website Royal Bank of Canada (http://www.rbc.com/community-sustainability/_assets-custom/pdf/RBC-CRR-Report-e-2012.pdf), viewed 23 January 2018.

[3] Royal Bank of Canada, written response to PAX dated 27 May 2015.

[4] Royal Bank of Canada, “2012 Corporate Social Responsibility Report and Public Accountability Statement”, 2012, p.59, available at http://www.rbc.com/community-sustainability/_assets-custom/pdf/RBC-CRR-Report-e-2012.pdf, viewed 23 January 2018; RBC Global Asset Management, “Approach to responsible investment”, available at http://www.rbcgam.com/corporate-governance-and-responsible-investment/pdf/approach-to-responsible-investment.pdf, viewed 23 January 2018; Royal Bank of Canada, written response to Profundo dated 27 May 2014.

[5] Royal Bank of Canada, written response to PAX dated 27 May 2015.

Last updated March 2018