Small ships carried the produce of the Caribbean islands north to seaports on the Atlantic coast of North America. The harbour would have looked similar in 1869 when the Merchants' Bank of Halifax first began financing trade in sugar, cocoa, tobacco and other tropical commodities from the south. As tourism became a major industry in Caribbean countries, Royal Bank's dockside branches were well placed to serve the many tourists arriving by boat, large and small.
Branch inspectors in the mud
An international branch network relied on bank inspectors to ensure that all branches were operating under the same rules, regardless of location. Often trips to remote branches were not an easy task as land transportation was subject to the whims of weather that could turn the surface of a picturesque country road into axle deep mud. Here an inspector contends with Puerto Rican mud in 1917.
