Big Five Banks of Canada

(sorted by total assets (C$) for 2003 fiscal year)

* RBC Royal Bank Of Canada ($403B)
* Bank of Nova Scotia ($286B)
* CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) ($277B)
* Toronto-Dominion Bank ($274B)
* BMO Financial Group (Bank of Montreal) ($256B)

When the National Bank of Canada ($82B) is included in the list, these are referred to as the "Big Six".

While these are the 800 pound gorillas of the Canadian banking scene (together they account for about 92% of the market in Canada), they're still small (although the Big Five are all in the global top 100) compared to global heavy-hitters (e.g. RBC is only ranked 55th globally), one justification that the BigFiveBanksOfCanada use in trying to justify federal approval for mergers.

See http://142.206.72.67/03/03e/03e_001a_e.htm for more info from StatsCan. 

''I was quite surprised to see where Bank of Nova Scotia ranked, I had always understood it was by far the smallest of the five, but those numbers are right from each bank's 2003 Annual Report.  If there's some explanation besides my being out in left field, I'd love to hear it.''

*This ranking has changed quite dramatically in the score of years I have been watching it.  Earlier in that period ScotiaBank was relatively small, and Bmo was #2.  I believe there are some times series that show this in one of the Statistics Canada (Cansim?) databases.  When I started watching, I seem to recall that the Royal Bank was the 5th largest Bank in the world (by assets) and that other Canadian Banks that are members of the then 'big five' were also in the World's top ten.  Changes in the American Banking laws modified the the global rankings with the growth of the German and Japanese economies being a contributing factor.  The adjustments within the ranking of the five Canadian banks seem to result from the overall effectiveness of their management and the policies they implement.

*See http://globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040625/RO7REGULY/TPBusiness/ROBM for more on the change in the banks' fortunes