Canada - ENView important timelines showing our progress in select areas.
ATM & Telephone (Mobile) Banking
| Year | Data |
|---|---|
| 1972 | 14 Bankettes were installed in Toronto, Ontario. As early generation automated banking machines, Bankettes provided 24-hour banking for withdrawals, deposits, transfers from one account to another, bill payments and cash advances on Chargex (VISA) accounts. |
| 1980 | Royal Bank rolled out its automated teller machine (ATM) network nationally with the installation of its first Personal Touch Banking machine (formerly known as Bankette) in Calgary, Alberta. |
| 1985 | Royal Bank’s automated teller machine network was officially linked with the Plus System Network, one of the largest shared automated teller machine networks in the United States. Royal Bank was Plus System Inc.’s first international partner. |
| The Personal Touch Banking machine network increased to 900 machines, each processing an average of 10,000 transactions per month. Consumer acceptance of banking machines surpassed the bank’s most optimistic expectations. | |
| Royal Bank became a founding member of Interac, the shared banking machine network in Canada that offered clients convenient access to their money at any participating financial institution’s automated teller machine. | |
| 1986 | Royal Bank introduced two new types of specialized banking machines in Ontario: the Passbook Account Updater, allowing Royal Bank clients to update their passbooks, and the Royal Bank Cash Counter, a cash dispensing automated banking machine small enough to be placed in off-bank premises. |
| An instruction kit designed to help visually impaired clients use Personal Touch Banking machines was distributed to all Royal Bank branches. | |
| 1988 | Royal Bank piloted Personal Touch Payment in London, Ontario – a new debit card service where clients could use their Royal Bank Client Cards to pay for purchases directly from their accounts at point-of-sale terminals. |
| 1990 | The Interac Association, representing all of Canada’s major financial institutions, piloted its debit card service, Interac Direct Payment Service, in the Ottawa/Hull region. |
| 1992 | Royal Bank had a total of 2,145 full-service Personal Touch Banking machines, 1,653 Cash Counters and 266 Account Updater machines across Canada. |
| Royal Bank’s discount brokerage service, Action Direct, launched TelAction, an automated telephone brokerage system providing 24/7 toll-free service to investors permitting them to obtain stock market quotes or initiate transactions, at their convenience, without first having to talk to a broker. | |
| 1993 | Royal Bank launched Ca$hTouch, a nationwide telephone banking service for business clients, the first service of its kind in Canada. Ca$hTouch gave clients remote access to account information and transactional services through an interactive voice response system. |
| 1994 | Royal Direct offered clients “anytime, anywhere” telephone banking from its state of the art telecommunications centre in Mississauga, Ontario. |
| 1995 | Royal Direct officially opened in high tech facilities in Moncton, New Brunswick – its second national telephone banking centre. |
| Royal Bank launched the “Phantom,” a new Interac Direct Payment device that offered merchants the widest variety of functions of any Interac product available in Canada. | |
| In London, Ontario, Royal Bank began a three-year project designed to develop and test new automated banking machine functions including: deposit account and VISA statements, transfers and withdrawals from Royal Credit Lines, lump sum payments on personal loans, and U.S. dollar and U.S. dollar travellers cheques dispensing. | |
| 1996 | Royal Mutual Funds (RMF) launched Invest By Phone, enabling investors to buy, sell or transfer RMF units by phone from anywhere in Canada or the continental United States. |
| After two years in operation, enrolment in Royal Direct Telephone Banking surpassed 900,000 clients – expanding daily by 2,000 clients – making it the fastest growing telephone banking service in the world. | |
| 1997 | Two new automated banking machines that dispensed U.S. dollars and Royal Bank VISA travellers cheques in U.S. dollars (a first for a Canadian financial institution) were piloted in Ontario (London and Toronto). |
| Royal Bank introduced the Royal Business Operating Line group of self-managed financing products. The service allowed business clients to manage their own operating line of funds with round-the-clock electronic access via banking machines, telephone banking, or online banking. | |
| Royal Bank launched Canada’s first Audio Banking Machine. | |
| 1998 | Royal Bank began pilot testing innovative Business Banking kiosks in six Ontario locations. The kiosks provided Royal Bank Business Banking clients with access to an automated banking machine, night depository, automated rolled-coin dispenser, individual mailboxes, and a dedicated phone link to a 24-hour help desk. |
| Royal Direct’s third Call Centre was officially opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba. | |
| 2000 | Royal Bank introduced Mobile Banking. Offered in partnership with Microcell Solutions Inc., national provider of Fido Personal Communications Services (PCS), the service provides wireless transactional banking services through Fido’s Access Finances feature. Clients use their Fido handsets to check account balances, transfer funds, and pay bills. |
| 2001 | Royal Bank introduced North America’s first wireless banking service for Palm handhelds, offering clients secure access to most online banking features, including account balances, funds transfer and bill payment. |
| 2003 | Royal Bank announced plans to introduce My Voice speech recognition feature for telephone banking clients. |
| 2004 | Royal Bank and Irving Oil signed an agreement where the bank installed almost 60 additional ATMs at Irving mainway locations throughout the Atlantic Provinces. |
| 2006 | Royal Bank introduced paperless bill payment as an option at ATMs. |
| 2007 | Royal Bank and VISA Canada teamed up to be the first in Canada to pilot a mobile payment service that uses cell phones rather than traditional credit cards for making Visa purchases. The Ontario-based pilot was completed in 2008. |
| 2008 | Research In Motion, Royal Bank and Thomson Reuters announced plans to launch the BlackBerry Partners Fund, a venture capital fund to invest in mobile applications and services for the Blackberry platform and other mobile platforms. |
| Royal Bank tested a new service, RBC Mobex Mobile Payment Service, allowing users to easily and securely send and receive money instantly using a text message on their mobile phone. | |
| Royal Bank installed new software and hardware in ATMs that provided clients with the option to decline paper receipts using a new withdrawal option called “My Quick Cash.” | |
| Royal Bank of Canada, VISA and Rogers Wireless implemented the next phase of the mobile payment pilot, allowing Canadians to make purchases securely at the point of sale with a wave of their mobile phone. The customer phase of the pilot was launched in mid-2009. | |
| 2010 | Royal Bank was the first Canadian bank to launch fully integrated mobile banking applications for select smartphones. |
| 2011 | $50.00 bills were added to Royal Bank’s ATMs and Royal Bank’s clients are provided access to their USD deposit accounts for withdrawals and transfers, through the bank’s ATMs. |