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Marketplace

 

Product Responsibility

"Responsibility" may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to how a bank develops its financial products and services--at least not the same way you might be concerned about how your child's toys are manufactured, or how your car was designed. But mortgages and loans, bank accounts and credit cards are all considered products, too, and at RBC, we ensure that all the products and services we develop for our clients align with our vision and values, and are guided by our comprehensive Code of Conduct.

Our product responsibility initiatives include:

Responsible development of products and services

RBC follows a defined, rigorous process before launching any new product or significantly changing an existing one. We evaluate products for a range of risks and ensure they align with client needs, our Code of Conduct, laws and regulations, and voluntary consumer protection codes that we have signed. Approval levels within RBC correspond to the level of risk identified for a particular product or service.

Low-carbon banking for consumers

One of our priorities is to provide products and
services that help our clients mitigate their environmental impact. This includes online banking, electronic statements and bill payment as well as education programs.

We encourage our clients to use electronic solutions that replace the carbon-intensive activities involved in retail banking such as travel and paper. For instance:

  • We have introduced a new RBC High Interest eSavings Account®, an online savings account that offers a premium interest rate with the convenience and flexibility of doing everything online without paying any fees.
  • Clients have chosen electronic statements for more than
    two million accounts.
  • Clients have responded favourably to our guide to low-carbon banking entitled Seven Ways to Reduce Your Environmental Banking Footprint.
  • We conducted research and assessed the value of introducing additional "green" products and participated in a UNEP FI North American Task Force initiative to review environmental products and services at various banks around the world.
Services for inner-city communities

Through our Cash & Save outlets, we provide services such as cheque cashing, bill payment, wires and foreign exchange in a few inner-city locations where people may not have bank accounts. We charge lower fees for than those charged in higher-income communities, and hire local community members to work as employees. More on access to banking services for low income and underserved clients.

Know your client rules

Know Your Client rules are key to investment and banking clients' protection. Our employees are required to make all necessary efforts to understand a client's profile, financial and personal objectives before making recommendations relevant to their needs. Our due diligence also covers compliance with applicable securities, consumer protection, anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism and economic sanctions legislation.

Socially responsible investing

Increasingly, investors are becoming interested in putting their money where their values are. This is called "socially responsible investing" or SRI. While the SRI market is growing in North America, it is not yet mainstream. At RBC we offer a number of products and services that could be defined as "SRI":

  • In Canada, RBC Asset Management offers three SRI funds - the RBC Jantzi Balanced Fund, the RBC Jantzi Canadian Equity Fund and the RBC Jantzi Global Equity Fund. With the launch of these products in July 2007, RBC was the first major Canadian bank to offer investors the option of socially responsible investing (SRI). Learn more about the RBC Jantzi Funds.

  • Financial advisors within RBC Asset Management can help clients screen their investments to ensure they are investing in a socially responsible manner, using information provided by Jantzi Research Associates. In addition, RBC's clients have access to all the SRI funds in the Canadian marketplace through our network of advisors.

  • In the United States, RBC Dain Rauscher's SRI Wealth Management Group, a specialized team of financial advisors based in San Francisco, provides SRI expertise to clients across the United States, including entrepreneurs, foundations, unions, and pension funds. The team manages almost US$1 billion in responsibly invested assets.

RBC's SRI Wealth Management Group continues to expand its portfolio by transitioning a greater number of pension funds, foundation, investment organizations and others to socially responsible investing, which includes climate change as a principal theme.

Responsible lending

RBC provides credit and banking services to companies in many industries. Due to client confidentiality, our Annual Report only discloses credit by major industry groups, not by individual sub-sectors or companies. However, we have policies that cover areas of particular concern including environmental issues. Learn more about our approach to environmentally responsible lending.

Transactions that are directly related to trade in or manufacturing of equipment and/or material for nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare, as well as landmines, are not eligible for RBC financing support or services under any circumstances.

RBC companies are also required to apply appropriate scrutiny and monitoring measures to high-risk clients whose business activities are known to be susceptible to criminal activity or have been designated as high risk for money laundering. RBC will not provide services to, and knowingly open an account for, a money-service business such as internet/on-line gambling sites, or entities owned/controlled, directly or indirectly, by a business that owns or operates such a site. Learn more about our anti-corruption policies.

"Green" services for the renewable energy sector

In London (U.K.), RBC Capital Markets' Energy & Utilities group provides experienced and successful services to the renewable energy sector. The 20-member team offers investment banking, financing and advisory services for businesses and renewable power projects in Europe, and provides support to our international activities within the renewable energy sector for projects such as wind farm, small hydro and biomass initiatives. In February 2004, RBC Capital Markets was the key advisor in closing a deal for a 400 megawatt wind farm portfolio in the U.K., deemed the renewable energy deal of the year by Project Finance International.

We finance more than 25 wind farms in Canada, U.S., U.K. and Italy and run a US$50 million Alternative Energy Investment fund overseen by RBC Capital Partners. RBC Technology Ventures is a lead investor in the GEF Clean Technology Fund, a private equity investment fund that identifies and finances companies that create technologies that enable traditional industrial companies to reduce energy consumption, their material waste, discharge of pollutants, safety or public health hazards, and other environmental issues.

Our strategy in renewable energy also includes conducting investment research for the capital markets in this area. For example, RBC has identified four key investment strategies for investing in the solar power industry and has produced the report, "Here Comes the Sun" to advise our clients and internal business partners.


Related Links
  Responsible Lending


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