Royal Bank of Canada has officially joined the ranks of global banks deemed too big to fail. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) in Basel, Switzerland has added the bank to the list of 30 global systemically important banks, which must set aside larger capital buffers and face more onerous oversight. The bank is the only Canadian bank on the list. The banks in the lowest and least onerous of five tiers in the categorization – called G-SIB banks – are required to hold an extra 1% capital buffer. RBC would be phased in by January 2019, but it said it already meets the higher capital standard. In Canada, the bank has been one of six major banks labelled as systemically important from a domestic lens since 2013. The G-SIB tag comes with other duties, such as detailed planning for resolvability and higher supervisory expectations. It can also push compliance costs higher.
