Banks All In The Family

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What happens when a big bank swallows a smaller one? More land. Banks are not about money. It’s about physical assets anchored on land: your house because you didn’t buy it in cash, you took a loan. Shopping malls belong to banks, so do apartment buildings, grocery chains, hotels, parking lots, sports stadiums everything. Therefore, when a bank like RBC takes over HSBC, it’s collecting a lot of residential and commercial real estate. 

What banks are involved in this case?

1. Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

2. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC Canada)

This is not breaking news per se, because the take-over was approved in September 2023. It was just waiting for the Canadian government’s blessing. Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland made it official on 22 December.

Banks Take Care of Their Own

We call it a take-over, but is it? Banks are a fraternity. They have house rules to protect and preserve. If one bank is limping, they form a circle to keep it afloat.

That solidarity applies to potential threats. That is why these two banks use initials. RBC used to be the Royal Bank of Canada. You couldn’t miss it in Canadian cities, with its blue colours. Why was it called the Royal Bank? Because the British royal family, that owned Canada used to be revered. Time passed. There are a lot of questions about the divine right of kings now. How did a small country like that own half the world? It was time to ditch ‘royal.’ That’s how the Royal Bank became simply RBC.

HSBC is found all over the world, not just Canada, but it was a colonial bank to finance land in Hong Kong and China. Time passed. Hong Kong and China are not the flavour of the month anymore. The bank simply became HSBC. Remember Kentucky Fried Chicken? We became health conscious and food dancing in oil is frowned upon. We hid the ‘fried’ and it became KFC.

Bank Fees

Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, approved the RBC take-over with conditions. When will she ask banks to justify bank fees on our own money, in this digital age? For example, make ten monthly transactions. We pay when we exceed that. We used to pay for bank tellers. Now there’s internet banking. Can the government give us the same consideration like major banks, and remove hacker bank fees?

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

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