One founded in Toronto, four moved in from elsewhere
Canada's Big Banks
Only one of Canada's major banks actually started in Toronto — the rest migrated in from Montreal and Halifax over the following century, before Bay Street became the inevitable place for all of them to be.
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Our economy guide covers Bay Street as it exists today. This page is about where the five banks that dominate it actually came from — and it's a more scattered origin story than their shared address suggests.
Bank of Montreal: the oldest, from elsewhere
Founded in Montreal in 1817 by nine of the city's leading merchants, the Bank of Montreal is Canada's oldest bank, and effectively served as the country's central bank until the Bank of Canada was created in 1935. Its Toronto operations are headquartered at First Canadian Place, but the institution itself is over a century older than its Bay Street presence.
The one that actually started in Toronto
The Bank of Toronto, founded in 1855 by a group of local millers and merchants, is the direct ancestor of today's TD Bank — genuinely homegrown, unlike most of its current Big Five peers. It merged with the Dominion Bank (founded 1869) in 1955 to form the Toronto-Dominion Bank.
A 1961 merger that created CIBC
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce traces to the largest bank merger in Canadian history: on June 1, 1961, the Canadian Bank of Commerce (founded 1867) merged with the Imperial Bank of Canada (founded 1875) to form CIBC, instantly creating the country's second-largest bank by market share.
Scotiabank and RBC: both from Halifax
Both Scotiabank (founded 1832) and the Royal Bank of Canada (founded 1864 as the Merchants Bank of Halifax) started in Nova Scotia, not Ontario — migrating their head offices to Toronto's Financial District over the following century as the city, covered in our economy guide, became the country's unambiguous financial capital by the 1970s.
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