Toronto-Dominion Bank

The Toronto-Dominion Bank is one of Canada’s top five banks and is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto-Dominion Bank offers a full range of financial services and products and operates under the corporate brand of TD Bank Financial Group.

Toronto-Dominion Bank Financial Group Subsidiaries include: TD Ameritrade (online discount brokerage and wealth management), TD Asset management, (global asset management), TD Bank, N.A., TD Canada Trust (Canadian personal and commercial banking), TD Commercial Banking (Global commercial banking), TD Insurance (Insurance products and services), TD Insurance (specialising in Alumni /professionals group rate – was formerly Meloche Monnex, TD Securities (global wholesale banking) and TD Waterhouse (Investment and wealth management).

The investment banking arm of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Financial Group employs close to 3,000 people and operates out of about 18 cities worldwide. TD Securities is one of the leading investment dealers in North America.

The History of the Toronto-Dominion Bank

The Toronto-Dominion Bank originates back to 1856 when a group of Ontario business men successfully opened The Bank of Toronto. The founding members of the bank wanted to create a financial institution that would best suit their needs as business men in banking, insurance and commodities exchange.

In 1871 The Dominion Bank was launched under the leadership of James Austin. Again the founding members were business men, entrepreneurs and professionals. In 1872 The Dominion Bank was the first Canadian bank to have two branches in one city – the city being Toronto.

Both the Bank of Toronto and the Dominion Bank survived the first and second World Wars and the depression of the 1930’s. It was not until the 1950’s that they realized that the competitiveness of their much larger rivals made it increasingly more difficult for them to meet their own objectives. Therefore in 1954 it was agreed that the two banks should emerge in order to make the most of the post- war economy. In 1955 the Bank of Toronto and the Dominion Bank became the Toronto-Dominion bank.

The new bank immediately set about consolidating and updating its branches and worked tirelessly on its public relations, focussing on customer services. Indeed the first slogan read as: “The Bank Where People Make the Difference”.

By the 1960’s the Toronto- Dominion Bank was well established and it began to look toward the international market for large scale project financing. This led to the development of a network of U.S. representative offices. Some partnerships with global merchant banks and venture capital operations were undertaken.

By the end of the 1960,s the Toronto-Dominion Bank had managed to diversify it’s customer base and was continually increasing and upgrading the products and services it offered to these same customers. Some of these new and exciting products included the Visa card, an “on-line” savings scheme (1967) and the first “full-service” automatic teller machine (1977).

In 1969 the new official logo became “TD green”. At the same time the bank began to utilize television and radio advertising to promote their products.

After 1970 International operations became a main focus of the bank with new subsidiaries opening in the United Kingdom, United States and the Middle East.

Despite surviving the economic downturn of the early 1980’s Toronto-Dominion reported significant loan losses in 1987 and so alongside its debt restructuring initiatives it also introduced new and conservative lending practices.

Despite the difficult economic climate TD Bank experienced some positive developments in the early 1990’s. The 1990’s required a quick response to the internet and TD Bank led the way in e-banking. The bank created its web site in 1996.Web access was introduced in 1998and a year later e-banking services were widely available to many TD Bank customers. TD Bank was to become a multi-channel-e-commerce company.

Toronto-Dominion’s Mergers and Acquisitions

In 1996 Toronto-Dominion Bank sought to acquire Waterhouse Investor Services Inc. The merger was completed in February 2000. In 2000 Td Bank also merged with Canada Trust. This merger led to the Competition Bureau permitting the bank to sell either its MasterCard or Visa business. The MasterCard was sold to Citibank Canada and TD started to advertise their Visa cards under the corporate brand of TD Visa.

Further mergers have included Stafford Trading and Letco trading in 2002, Laurentian Bank Retail Branches in 2003, Banknorth NA in 2005 and Commerce Bancorp in 2007.