1939 - 1960

War and Peace: Banking in a Keynesian World

R-Oil

Leduc branch, in its permanent location, 1947

The war invigorated the search for energy and Royal Bank's Calgary manager, Ernie McLean, took a crusading role in briefing Royal Bank on the day-to-day financial needs of the oil patch. On February 14, 1947, the day after Imperial Oil's Leduc1 well "came in", Royal Bank opened a branch in Leduc, Alberta. Two years later additional "oil" branches were opened in Redwater and Devon.

In 1951, an Oil and Gas department was established in Calgary, a prescient decentralization that captured the oil financing market in Western Canada. By the 1950s, Royal Bank styled itself the "R-Oil Bank" as oil generated business for the bank in the form of payroll deposits, foreign exchange and real estate.

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