The Canadian government announced on the 21st that it has conditionally approved the acquisition of HSBC Bank of Canada by Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).
Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Freeland, made the above approval decision on the same day in accordance with the authorization of the Canadian Banking Act.
The Canadian government has stated that RBC has made a series of important commitments to protect consumers and related practitioners, such as safeguarding HSBC's Canadian workforce; Build a new global banking center in Vancouver that can support over a thousand job opportunities and add approximately 440 new jobs locally; Increase the number of employees in the Winnipeg Customer Operations Center; Continue to provide banking services for at least 33 HSBC branches in Canada for 4 years; Exempt HSBC Canada customers from certain fees related to mortgage loan transfers and international remittances for individual customers.
RBC's main commitments also include providing $7 billion in financing for affordable housing construction across Canada to support the construction of approximately 25000 new homes; Continue to maintain Mandarin and Cantonese services at HSBC branches.
The Canadian Competition Agency stated in a public report submitted to the Finance Minister that this acquisition will not lead to a significant reduction in competition in the country's financial industry; Will not reduce competition in mortgage interest rates. Due to HSBC Canada's current market share being less than 2%, RBC's market share after acquisition will not increase significantly.
On the same day, the Ministry of Finance of Canada announced the launch of new consultations on strengthening competition in the financial industry.
In November 2022, RBC and HSBC Group announced that they had reached an agreement to acquire HSBC's Canadian business for CAD 13.5 billion in full cash. In May of this year, the Canadian Competition Agency announced a review of this acquisition.
HSBC currently has approximately 4000 employees in Canada and serves approximately 780000 clients. (End)