RBC\u2019s chief executive says trade talks with the United States are part of a normal process and that ultimately, the CUSMA agreement is too important to Canada, Mexico and the U.S. for any of them to walk away.<\/p>\n
Speaking at an event hosted by Bloomberg on Tuesday, CEO Dave McKay played down suggestions the relationship between the U.S. and Canada is increasingly fraught at a time when the bank has been expanding south of the border.<\/p>\n
He says trade between the two countries remains strong and largely balanced, even as Canada continues to diversify its trade relationships with other countries outside of North America.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to maintain our $1.3-trillion relationship with the United States and grow that at the same time,\u201d he said of diversified trade.<\/p>\n
The Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement is approaching a July 1 deadline for the countries to rubber-stamp an extension, but McKay noted the agreement will remain in place until at least 2036 regardless.<\/p>\n
McKay says trade negotiations aren\u2019t out of the ordinary as economies evolve, and that he\u2019s confident the countries will come to an agreement over time, even though it\u2019s a protracted process.<\/p>\n
However, an unresolved CUSMA negotiation is muting businesses\u2019 appetite for spending in Canada compared with the U.S., which continues to be in risk-on mode, McKay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re certainly seeing some demand coming out of (the) Canadian economy, but I would say it\u2019s slowing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, RBC is open to taking on more risk in the U.S. as that economy performs well and supports a larger part of the bank\u2019s balance sheet, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s higher demand for investments in the U.S. as AI startups and hyperscalers suck up all the capital in the markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s also, on the other side, a fear of: Will there be enough capital for all demand out there?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s driving a huge amount of not only bank-to-bank debt \u00a0\u2026 but also high yield issuance and equity issuance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from dominating the markets, AI has also enthralled the RBC CEO\u2019s personal life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get lost in it a little bit,\u201d he said of a suite of agentic CEO office tools custom-made for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would spend at least an hour on it in the morning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
McKay said the agentic models keep him updated on the goings-on within and outside the bank. A range of those agentic models synthesize information on the macro economy, global economy, banks\u2019 forecasts, foreign exchange and even markets and consumer behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can get a feel for how the consumer is behaving and I can link that back into what the economy\u2019s doing,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives me this unique view on understanding external and internal at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
RBC hasn\u2019t disclosed how much it has invested in its AI capabilities, but it spends more than $5 billion a year on technology, according to a piece from American Banker from March that was reposted by RBC. The bank is expecting AI investments to generate between $700 million and $1 billion in revenue and cost savings by next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McKay said AI at RBC will enable employees to serve more customers efficiently as the back-office work gets simplified and offer expansion capabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be more efficient, we\u2019ll maybe need less people, but a lot of that\u2019s coming through attrition and through demographic change,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need that in our society. We need these tools.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RBC\u2019s chief executive says trade talks with the United States are part of a normal process and that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[439,17,4613,1749,401],"class_list":["post-91275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-canada","tag-canadian-economy","tag-rbc","tag-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}