Royal Bank of Canada (RY) 2015 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the RBC 2015 third-quarter results conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Ms. Amy Cairncross, VP and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Cairncross.

Good morning and thank you for joining us. Presenting to you this morning are Dave McKay, President and Chief Executive Officer; Janice Fukakusa, Chief Administrative Officer and CFO; and Mark Hughes, Chief Risk Officer. Following their comments, we will open the call for questions from analysts.

The call is one hour long and will end at 9.00 AM. To give everyone a chance to participate, please keep it to one question and then requeue. We will be posting management's remarks on our website shortly after the call.

Joining us for your questions are George Lewis, Group Head Wealth Management and Insurance; Doug McGregor, Group Head Capital Markets and Investor and Treasury Services; Jennifer Tory, Group Head Personal and Commercial Banking; Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer; and Bruce Ross, Group Head Technology and Operations.

As noted on slide 2, our comments may contain forward-looking statements which involve applying assumptions and have inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these statements. I will now turn the call over to Dave McKay.

Thanks, Amy and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. RBC had a solid quarter with net income of over CAD2.4 billion, up 4% from last year or 2% excluding the prior year's loss related to the sale of RBC Jamaica.

Compared to last quarter, earnings were down 1% but were up 3% excluding the foreign exchange gains in Q2. I would highlight that this morning we announced a CAD0.02 or 3% increase to our dividend, bringing our quarterly dividend to CAD0.79 a share.

We had underlying strength across most of our segments while maintaining a strong credit in the capital position. I believe these results demonstrate the strength of our diversified model and solid execution in an increasingly uncertain environment.

Before I provide my perspective on the performance of our business segments, let me share some views on the Canadian economy, oil prices, and the housing market. Starting with the economy, in recent months we've seen mixed economic data and weaker than anticipated growth, which led the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates for a second time this year. Looking ahead, we still forecast modest growth in Canada in the second half of the year, as a strengthening US economy and lower Canadian dollar expected to drive export growth and consumer spending continues to be steady.

Declining oil prices is causing economic uncertainty, particularly in the West with lower levels of investment. As we expected, low oil prices are challenging for some of our clients. This quarter, we saw an uptick in impairments and Mark will discuss how we are managing our lending portfolios in this environment.

Turning to the housing market. It's important to understand that Canada is a country of many regional housing markets, each of which has its own dynamics. The Greater Toronto and Vancouver regions are continuing to see strong levels of activity.

The short supply of single-family homes in both cities, coupled with strong demand fueled by household formation, including net immigration, has driven strong price growth. In July alone home prices accelerated by 11% and 9% year over year in Vancouver and Toronto, respectively, the fastest pace of growth since 2010. We're watching these markets very closely, given price growth and the persistence of tight inventory.

We continue to actively monitor key variables, including sales to listings, rental capacity in the market, affordability and inventory level. Over the years we've enhanced our lending policies and property valuation strategies.

Offsetting some of this growth is lower activity in oil-exposed regions. It's important to remember that many areas of Alberta are coming off several years of hyper growth, so the recent slowdown is in part a return to more normal growth levels. But we do recognize these markets remain vulnerable to lower oil prices.

In most other Canadian markets we're seeing generally balanced conditions. Fundamentally, the Canadian housing market continues to be supported by strong trends in employment, household income, population growth and low interest rates.

What gives me confidence during this period of market and economic uncertainty is that RBC is diversified across different businesses, client segments and geographies. It has strict risk and cost discipline and is backed by a strong capital position.

With this foundation, we are positioned to continue executing on our key strategic priorities. For example, we're working towards closing the acquisition of City National later this year, which increases our leverage to a strengthening US economy and creates a platform for long-term growth.

Also, we've been heavily investing in technology for the past five or six years. We're focused on leveraging these investments to drive further efficiencies, deliver a differentiated experience and generally make it easier for our clients and employees to do business with us.

Turning to the performance of our business segments. Canadian banking had a record quarter with earnings up 5% from last year and I'd like to highlight a few key drivers of our results. First, we had strong overall volume growth of 6%, with particular strength in our mortgage business, as balances grew over 6% from last year.

Both the seasonality of the summer mortgage season and historically low interest rates spurred a higher level of market activity for new originations and refinancing. In addition, the simplicity of our employee pricing campaign coupled with employee referrals helped drive sales. This quarter we also saw clients switch out of unsecured lines of credit into mortgage products to take advantage of lower rates, which also contributed to mortgage growth.

With this growth, we've remained disciplined from a risk perspective. I would point out that since we originate mortgages through our proprietary channels, we're able to work directly with clients to help them manage debt. And we're seeing evidence of conservatism, as many clients are committing to accelerate a repayment plan and paying down lines of credit.

We also saw strong growth in business financial services, with business loans up 9% from last year and business deposits up 11%. This is a competitive space, however we are the market leader in business financial services in Canada and continue to deepen our client relationships by offering personalized services in a full product suite.

Another driver of Canadian banking's results was our continued momentum in mutual funds and the credit card business. Our mutual fund assets grew by 13% over last year, reflecting the strength and breadth of our distribution network. And we're well positioned to capture the increasing client demand for savings and investment products.

Growth in our cards business is being driven by our ongoing commitment to delivering a strong value proposition to our clients. For example, we've enhanced our redemption options for clients including our very popular pay back with points option. To date this year we've seen a number of new clients using our Avion and WestJet premium cards increase by 18%.

Lastly, I'm pleased with how the business has continued to manage costs and leverage investments in technology to further improve our industry-leading efficiency ratio. For example, now virtually all of our mortgages are processed through our new system, which has automated the end-to-end origination process from sales and adjudication through to fulfillment.

Turning to Caribbean banking, we had a particularly strong quarter. Our results reflect improved credit performance, progress from our restructuring activities and the benefit of a stronger US dollar. Even as the region continues to experience economic headwinds, we believe we can continue to deliver solid core operating performance.

Moving to wealth management. Global asset management, our most profitable wealth management business, continues to perform well. Solid net sales this quarter drove AUM growth of 12% from last year, despite uncertain market conditions. We continue to invest in the business by attracting experienced portfolio managers and by enhancing our infrastructure to sustain our leading position in Canada and extend our global reach.

In Canadian wealth management, we hold the number one position in the high net worth segment, we continue to recruit experienced and high producing investment advisors to further grow market share, with fee-based assets per advisor over two times our Canadian peer average. Our client relationships go beyond traditional investments as we provide a more holistic approach to wealth management.

As we've discussed, we've been particularly focused on business owners. And the partnership between Canadian banking and wealth management is enabling us to identify and help these clients plan for succession; from finding a buyer to financing the transaction and managing their new wealth.

We plan to expand succession planning in the US as a large portion of our US wealth management clients, our business owners. Through the acquisition of City National we'll be able to offer clients a broader suite of products.

Moving next to Insurance, we continue to focus on deepening relationships and simplifying products and processes, making it easier for our clients to do business with us. As a result, we continue to gain new clients and we're seeing greater success of cross-selling other Insurance products.

Turning to investor and treasury services, as Janice will explain, results were elevated in part because we aligned reporting periods in investor services. Fundamentally the growth of this business continues to be driven by ongoing focus on our clients' needs as well as exercising cost discipline. In fact, RBC's consistently recognized for its excellent customer service. This quarter we received the custody industry's top award for customer service. We were named Fund Administrator of the Year, Developed Markets by Global Investor ISS Magazine.

Turning lastly to capital markets, we had a solid quarter, particularly in light of record results last year, which included two large trades. Corporate investment banking had record revenue of over CAD1 billion, mainly driven by strong M&A activity in the US and Europe. This achievement demonstrates our success in growing the business by focusing on traditional investment banking and origination activities, as well as a diversification across products, industry sectors, and geographies.

Offsetting the strength was lower trading revenue reflecting challenging markets this quarter. And as you've seen, global capital markets have continued to be volatile, driven by concerns related to China and the continued decline in commodity prices.

Looking forward, I remain confident in our capital market strategy. We are maintaining our leading position in Canada, our US business continues to drive growth and accounts for almost half of our capital markets earnings. As a top 10 player in the US, we're well positioned to capitalize on the improving US economy. And in Europe, while the economic environment remains challenging, I'm encouraged by the increase in client mandates as it demonstrates RBC's strengthening market position.

To wrap up, it was a solid quarter. I'm pleased with our year-to-date performance, with earnings up 11% from last year or 8% on an adjusted basis, and we remain on track to meet our performance objectives.

There is no question that we're operating in an uncertain economic environment; however given our diversified business model, our market-leading position in Canada, a deepening platform in the US and a growing presence in Europe and other key markets, I'm confident we can continue delivering shareholder value by capitalizing on opportunities created by the changing market and economic environment.

Before I turn the call over to Janice, I want to recognize George Lewis. As you know, we recently announced that Doug Guzman will succeed George as Group Head of our wealth management insurance business beginning on November 1. George will continue to play a key role in global asset management, but given that this will be George's last quarterly call, I wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely thank him for his contributions.

Under his leadership we've established the number one position in Canadian wealth and asset management. We grew to become the fifth largest wealth manager globally and greatly expanded and diversified our asset management business globally through some very challenging market conditions. So thank you, George. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Janice.

Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. As Dave said, it was a solid quarter, with earnings of over CAD2.4 billion, up CAD97 million or 4% from last year. Excluding last year's loss related to the sale of RBC Jamaica, earnings were up CAD57 million or 2%. Compared to last quarter, earnings decreased CAD27 million or 1%. Excluding last quarter's foreign currency gain, earnings were up CAD81 million or 3%.

Our results reflect record earnings in personal and commercial banking, including solid growth in Canadian banking and improved results in the Caribbean, as well as continued growth in investor and treasury services. As Dave noted, capital markets earnings were down from exceptionally strong levels last year and last quarter, and reflect challenging market conditions in the quarter.

Turning to capital on slide 7. Our common equity Tier 1 ratio of 10.1% increased 10 basis points from last quarter. Strong internal capital generation was partially offset by higher risk-weighted assets and the impact of a weakening Canadian dollar, particularly versus the British pound and the euro, as we hedge the bulk of our US dollar exposure.

In addition, our capital ratio was positively impacted by a higher discount rate, which decreased our pension obligations and increased our pension plan assets. I would note that our common equity Tier 1 ratio has increased 60 basis points from last year, as we've continued to build capital in anticipation of closing the announced acquisition of City National in our first fiscal quarter of 2016.

Moving to our business segment results starting on slide 8. Personal and commercial banking reported record earnings of over CAD1.2 billion, up CAD143 million or 13% from last year, and up CAD81 million or 7% from last quarter. Canadian banking reported record earnings of over CAD1.2 billion, up CAD54 million or 5% from last year.

Our results reflect solid volume growth of 6%, including loan growth of 5% and deposit growth of 7%. Our performance also reflects 10% growth in fee-based revenue, as net new sales and capital appreciation drove higher mutual fund distribution fees. In addition, growth in credit card balances and purchase volumes drove higher credit card revenue.

Our solid revenue growth in Canadian banking this quarter was partially offset by higher costs to support business growth, as well as lower spreads, largely in business lending which continues to be highly competitive. Sequentially, Canadian banking earnings were up CAD48 million or 4%, largely due to additional days in the quarter.

Strong fee-based revenue growth and solid volume growth across most businesses also contributed to the increase. These factors were partially offset by higher costs to support business growth and higher PCL, which Mark will explain.

This quarter our net interest margin in Canadian banking was 2.66%, up 2 basis points sequentially or flat when you exclude last quarter's cumulative accounting adjustment. Our efficiency ratio improved 30 basis points over last year to 43.5% and we generated positive operating leverage of 0.7%, demonstrating our ongoing focus on managing the trajectory of revenue growth against expense growth.

Caribbean and US banking had earnings of CAD42 million, up CAD89 million from last year. Excluding last year's loss related to the sale of RBC Jamaica, earnings were up CAD49 million, reflecting lower PCL and the benefit of cost management initiatives and foreign currency translation. Sequentially, our earnings were up CAD33 million, as last quarter included a CAD23 million after-tax loss on the sale of RBC Surinam.

Turning to slide 9. Wealth management had earnings of CAD285 million, flat from last year. We had higher earnings from growth in average fee-based client assets across all businesses.

Assets under management and assets under administration were up 14% and 11%, respectively, over last year due to FX, net sales, and capital appreciation. This growth was mostly offset by lower transaction volumes reflecting lower client activity, and fewer new issuances due to the uncertain market conditions this quarter. In addition, our earnings were negatively impacted by a change in fair value of our US share-based compensation plan.

Sequentially earning were up CAD14 million or 5%, as the prior quarter had provisions for credit losses and higher restructuring costs related to the repositioning of our US and international wealth management businesses. We're about three quarters through the expected costs associated with this and expect to be largely finished by the end of the fiscal year.

Moving to insurance on slide 10. Net income of CAD173 million was down CAD41 million or 19% from last year, largely reflecting the negative impact of the tax change that I've previously discussed, as well as higher net claims costs in our life retro session business. Sequentially, net income was up CAD50 million or 41%, mainly due to lower net claims costs, the favorable impact of investment-related activities on the Canadian life business and higher earnings from a new UK annuity contract.

Turning to slide 11, investor and treasury services had earnings of CAD167 million, up CAD57 million or 52% from last year. Previously investor services reported earnings on a one month lag. Effective this quarter, we aligned the reporting period and therefore the third quarter includes four months of results, adding CAD28 million to the segment's earnings.

Growth from last year was also driven by higher earnings from our foreign exchange businesses and increased custodial fees, partially offset by lower funding and liquidity revenue, reflecting widening credit spreads. Compared to last quarter, earnings were up CAD8 million or 5%, driven by the additional month of investor services results, partially offset by lower funding and liquidity revenue.

Capital markets had a solid quarter. Net income of CAD545 million decreased CAD96 million or 15% from a record last year, and was down CAD80 million or 13% from a strong Q2.

As Dave mentioned, we have a strong and growing presence in the US. We benefited from foreign currency translation which increased earnings by CAD37 million compared to last year. At the same time, our effective tax rate has increased, as the US is a higher tax jurisdiction.

Markets were more challenging in Q3, resulting in lower fixed income and equity trading and lower equity origination activity. I'll also remind you that last year's results included two trades which added approximately CAD100 million to trading revenue. While trading was down, we had strong growth in corporate and Investment banking, driven by higher M&A activity in the US and Europe and higher lending revenue, mainly in the US and Canada.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Thank you, Janice, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 14. Our credit quality remains strong this quarter, as credit trends stayed near historic lows reflecting our strong risk management, low interest rates and strong employment trends.

However, given the headwinds Dave has highlighted, our outlook remains cautious. Provisions for credit losses on impaired loans of CAD270 million, or 23 basis points this quarter, remain near historical lows and decreased by CAD12 million or 2 basis points from last quarter. This decrease mainly reflects lower provisions in wealth management and in the Caribbean and US banking, which were partially offset by higher provisions in Canadian Banking.

Wealth management's provisions were down CAD32 million sequentially as last quarter included a provision on a single account in our international wealth management Business. We had no new provisions this quarter. In Caribbean and US banking, provisions were down CAD4 million from last quarter reflecting stable credit trends.

In capital markets, provisions were flat sequentially at CAD15 million and largely related to one exploration and production account in Canada. In Canadian banking, we had provisions of CAD238 million or 26 basis points, up CAD26 million or 1 basis point from last quarter. I would point out that the increase was mainly due to the reversal last quarter of a provision on a single account in our commercial lending portfolio.

Turning to slide 15. Our Canadian retail portfolio remains stable. Provisions in our credit card portfolio remained low at 243 basis points, down 19 basis points sequentially primarily due to seasonality.

In our small business portfolio, while we expect variability from quarter to quarter, we've seen a decline in provisions over the last few quarters. Provisions in our personal portfolio remain stable from last quarter.

Our residential mortgage portfolio continues to perform well with provisions of one basis point this quarter, consistent with our historical performance. As seen on Slide 16, this portfolio benefits from broad geographic diversification and a strong loan to value of 55% on our uninsured mortgages.

Turning to gross impaired loans as highlighted on slide 17, we saw an increase of CAD234 million this quarter of which approximately 35% was due to foreign exchange translation. Capital markets gross impaired loans increased by CAD177 million, Largely related to four accounts, two of which were exploration and production companies, one in Canada and one in the United States. Only one of these accounts required to be provisioned for this quarter.

Wealth management gross impaired loans increased by CAD39 million related to a single account in our international wealth business in the British Isles. Personal and commercial banking gross impaired loans increased by CAD18 million, mainly related to two accounts in Canada, both unrelated to the oil and gas sector. To summarize, while our gross impaired loans increased this quarter, our total oil and gas portfolio only accounts for 8% of total gross impaired loans.

Turning to slide 18, let me provide you with an update on our oil and gas exposure. Our drawn exposure to the oil and gas sector represents 1.6% of RBC's total loan book, up marginally from last quarter mainly due to foreign exchange translation. The composition of this portfolio remains unchanged, with approximately 65% of loans to exploration and production companies.

Our undrawn exposure to oil and gas has increased from last quarter, also largely related to foreign exchange translation, as well as a few new commitments. The undrawn book continues to be two-thirds investment grade. The aggregate drawn and undrawn book is approximately 50% investment grade and 50% non-investment grade.

As the price of oil has continued to decline through the year, we've updated our stress scenarios. From a wholesale perspective, we stress test on a name-be-name basis. Our most recent scenario assumes a CAD35 oil price for the remainder of 2015 and uses the forward price curve for 2016, which currently averages CAD45. Based on this scenario, we're now monitoring a handful of additional names compared to our prior scenarios.

If the price of oil stays at current levels, we could see an uptick in wholesale provisions. However, we have seen a number of companies raise capital, delay capital spending, or cut dividends, which should help mitigate some of the impact.

One factor we will keep a close eye on is this fall's boring base redeterminations. Our price deck used for our spring redetermination expected the average annual price to be closer to CAD53 in 2015 with small increases to the mid-CAD60s over time.

Should oil prices remain below CAD45, we would expect to see further challenges for these clients, as our price deck would be reflecting these further depressed prices. Should this occur, our first impact will be an increase in gross impaired loans.

I would stress that this may not play out in immediate increases in PCL, as for most of these boring base financings, we are secured and we are at the top of the debt stack. We take into account a view on loss in the event of default before we take provisions.

Turning to our retail portfolios, and the possible second-order impacts. We are watching for changes in employment trends and consumer behavior, as they are key leading indicators. In particular, we've seen the unemployment rate increase from 4.5% to 6.3% in Alberta, although it still remains below the national average of 6.8%.

Delinquencies remain near historical lows and we have not seen an increase in delinquencies for Canada as a whole, but have noticed a slight uptick this quarter in oil-exposed provinces. This increase is insignificant at this point, and it's too early to say if this is a trend.

We've stressed the retail and commercial portfolio across a number of variables, including higher unemployment rates, a decline in house prices and slower growth across the country. Overall, under these stress scenarios, we continue to believe our PCL ratio will remain within our risk appetite of 40 to 50 basis points through the cycle.

But putting aside the stress scenarios, and given what we are currently seeing across our portfolios, we could envisage our results moving from the benign to more normalized credit levels. Let me remind you the 23 to 26 basis points we have experienced over recent quarters represents an historically benign credit environment. In a more normalized PCL environment we would see amounts in the 30 to 35 basis point range.

Turning to market risk, this quarter while we saw fairly volatile market conditions, our average value at risk decreased by CAD3 million and our average stress value at risk decreased by CAD14 million quarter over quarter. It is worth noting that both remain low at CAD31 million and CAD91 million, respectively, relative to our trading revenue streams. In addition, we had no days of trading losses this quarter. In fact, we have had no trading losses since January 2015, as shown on slide 20.

To conclude, while recent market and economic headwinds underpin a more cautious outlook, I am pleased with our overall credit and market risk performance, which benefited from the diversification of our portfolios, both in terms of geography and industry, as well as our prudent risk management practices.

With that, operator, we'll open the line for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions)

The first question is from Steve Theriault at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Thanks very much. I had a question for Janice but maybe a quick follow up for Mark, if I could.

You gave us a bunch of numbers there on your oil and gas stress test. Do I have it right that you're telling us the average through-the-cycle PCL loss rate's 30 to 35 bps, and under the stress case that you outlined for us, PCLs don't go any higher than that 40- to 50-basis point range? Is that correct?

What I said was the 30 to 35 basis points would be a more normalized PCL that we would have experienced over time. And the stress tests are not seeing us pass our risk appetite of 40 to 50 basis points.

Okay. Wanted to focus on capital for a second, for Dave or maybe for Janice. The global SIFI review is coming up in a couple of months. Wondering to what extent you've maybe had discussions with the regulator as to whether you expect to be regulated with more intensity or subject to higher buffers? Or whether things like buybacks or acquisitions would be more scrutinized carefully, or more scrutinized if in fact you make the list this year?

Sure, Steve it's Janice.

I'll answer that for you to the extent I can. We recognize that given the metrics, that we may be classified as a G-SIFI. Of course it all depends on the euro and the performance of the other banks.

So we have had discussions specifically with OSFI about the prospect of being a G-SIFI. And we've had discussions about capital and they've indicated to us that they will get back to us towards the end of September or mid October.

The discussions have centered around the fact that we already have a domestic SIFI buffer. And if you look at the tiering of the G-SIFIs, we recognize the fact that domestic SIFI buffer will be replaced by a G-SIFI. But the range, as you know, is anywhere from a low of 1% up to 2.5%.

Currently, when you look at our capital levels, we're running at 10.1%. We have a bit of a prudential minimum we look towards of maybe 9.5%, so that's 250 basis points. With respect -- so those are the discussions we're having and we're assuming that as OSFI comes to the conclusion, they will let us know slightly prior to when it's announced to the market.

When you lock at our capital, our capital planning and capital attribution and allocation, our critical driver on capital accumulation today is to fund our City National acquisition. We think that will take about 70 basis points, so we are building capital towards that.

With a close in our first fiscal quarter and given our solid capital and earnings generation, we feel that once we close City National, we'll be in more of a business as usual capital allocation and usage time. Which will mean funding, of course as usual, all organic growth, looking at dividends increasing at the rate of growth of earnings and looking at buybacks or other acquisitions at the margin, recognizing of course, that we are committed to effectively integrating and getting City National off to an excellent start in terms of its earnings generation. That's the way we're looking at capital.

So just to be clear, if you do get classified, clearly it will be in the bottom bucket, which is the equivalent to the 1% domestic SIFI. You gave some color on that, but can I translate that into there is at least some risk that if you're in the 1% category that it is an additive, additional CET1 or not?

I don't think that the way the metrics work, it will be additive. But I would say that if you look at how we're running our capital, as I said, we are running capital at a 250- to 300-basis point buffer at this point in time over the 7%. We think that's a prudent level to run our capital at.

Thanks for that color. Appreciate it.

Thank you, the next question is from Robert Sedran at CIBC.

Hi, good morning. Want to better understand the flat year-over-year wealth management earnings. I know there's a restructuring going on but, Janice, to start, can you quantify that US share-based comp issue that was called out on the slide?

Yes, Rob, I would say this about the US comp issue too. It is episodic so it relates to the value of the ROI shares, some of it. And the fact that while we've hedged our -- we've hedged our stock-based compensation. It's an economic hedge and not an accounting hedge, so the mark to market moves around. And then I'm going to turn it over to George to make some comments on unusuals and earnings trajectories.

Sure, thanks, Janice, and thanks, Robert, for the question. Yes, we disclosed this in the supplemental, the impact of the US wealth accumulation plan. And if I recall, on a year-over-year basis. I think the differential's around CAD14 million, so roughly 5%.

I'd say we also had a couple of other minor unusuals. But on the international wealth restructuring, to follow on Janice's comments, we had some modest amounts this quarter. We're about 75% of the way through that program. So you will see an item in the fourth quarter as we largely complete that by year end. And then we are very focused then on letting the results of our larger businesses, that Dave highlighted, flow through to our bottom line to a greater extent.

So the restructuring costs are going to fall away next year. You had revenue growth, from what I can tell, across all three of your business lines, and it was 8% year over year. So is this still a business that should be a high single-, low double-digit earnings contributor? Or is there something -- are you making investments in the international businesses elsewhere that's going to slow that growth rate as we look into next year?

Yes, thanks very much, Rob, for that follow up. We are very focused as we go into 2016, Doug and myself, on a more modest revenue growth outlook, given market conditions. So the completion of our international wealth restructuring program is allowing us to accelerate our expense program. We are bringing that expense profile in line with our revenue growth, so that we are able to deliver positive operating leverage, even in a more modest revenue environment.

But the underlying flow performance, the client flows in our three large businesses, remain positive. We feel good about 2016 in terms of momentum of our businesses now that we've largely completed our restructuring.

Thank you.

The next question is from John Aiken at Barclays.

Good morning. Mark, you did an excellent job in your prepared commentary, but unfortunately you're still going to get some questions on credit. In terms of when you characterize a normalized environment of 30 to 35 basis points, what in terms of the macro environment over the next little while would get you there?

And could you frame your answer around the fact that we've seen ongoing improvements within the Canadian consumer portfolio over the last 12 months, but actually deterioration on the business side, which would, even if we were looking at year ago, was probably counterintuitive?

Thank you, John.

I guess normalized goes to some of the macro-economic metrics. Do we expect interest rates in Canada and the United States to stay at the levels that they are?

Obviously depending on how some of the current market conditions are, they may do for a period of time. But I think in a more normalized situation, we would be expecting interest rates to move.

Unemployment is obviously a big factor that would come into play, and then GDP growth. So those macroeconomic factors, I think, need to normalize a little bit from where we are. And we would then expect to see it move from the lower -- the mid 20 bps up to the 30 bps to 35 bps. Now when those conditions occur is anyone's guess, but those are the things that I would bear in mind.

And then in context, the evolution of the Canadian consumer book versus the Canadian commercial book, or the wholesale book?

Well, we're certainly seeing on the commercial book, good business growth, as Dave reported in his comments. We did see, as I think I reported, a couple gross impaired loans, but they were very name-specific and situation-specific. So we're not really seeing a deterioration in credit trend in that portfolio.

On the retail side, across all of the portfolios as I reported, we're not seeing deterioration in our impairment rates. In fact, in some cases we're actually still seeing some improvements. So I'm not really seeing, either in retail or commercial, significant concerns at this point. It's just I overlay, of course, the market conditions that we're operating in and so that's why I've tried to express a cautious view.

Great, thanks for the color, Mark. I'll requeue.

Thank you. The next question is from Gabriel Deschaine from Canaccord Genuity.

Good morning. My question is for Dave or Janice.

A follow-up of Steve's questions on the G-SIB nomination potential later this year. Let's say things don't turn out as you hope they do and OSFI requires another buffer to be layered on and the target goes to 11%. That's a few billion dollars of incremental capital.

I assume you'll earn you way there, for the most part, and have some flexibility in that regard. However, the market always wants higher capital ratios to occur faster. Would you look at selling some assets to speed up that progression?

I can take that. I don't think we can comment on that now. There's lots of options for us, we'd come up with a plan with OSFI to meet that new target, if they set it there. We have no idea if they would or not. But there's a number of ways we can get there and I think it would be imprudent to hypothesize which avenue it would take. But certainly the plan would be to work with OSFI towards the time we would get to that target.

Okay. Next question, a couple quick ones here. If you can comment on the current trading commissions you've seen in August. I know volumes will probably be lower, but just what you're seeing.

Also, if we get another Bank of Canada rate cut, what are you doing to prepare for that? I know the first one we saw earlier this year was a bit of a surprise, but the most recent one was expected, and maybe another one will be expected. What can you do to offset any additional NIM pressures there?

I can start with the trading conditions currently. Starting with fixed income, we're seeing, because of the recent market volatility, high yield, for instance, in the US. New issue flow is down. Investment-grade credit is steady but down a little bit. In rates trading, I would say it hasn't changed.

In the equities trading side of the business, it's really just agency trading. We're not really putting capital to work to offer liquidity, so the equities trading business has actually been, as you might imagine, reasonably robust, especially over the last several days. In terms of preparing for a rate cut --

Great, thank you, Doug. What I would say about preparing for the rate cut is as you've seen when we look at a potential for a Bank of Canada rate cut, we lock at a variety of factors, including impacts on our clients and also looking at other rates in the market and what's happening to our funding spreads. So I would say that when we are approaching it, we would look at the actual conditions in the market before we determine the direct response.

Just as with other areas of net interest margin pressure in our Canadian banking platform, we are also focused on driving efficiencies and insuring that despite the revenue environment, we can still drive very solid earnings growth. I think those programs have been started and are well underway and we'll continue to focus on both earnings growth, as well as some top-line growth.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you. The next question is from Meny Grauman at Cormark Securities.

Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask a question about the mortgage market. You are putting up good mortgage growth, 6.5%. That looks quite a bit better than the market overall, based on the aggregate data that we have. I'm wondering if you think that kind of out-performance is sustainable and what do you attribute it to?

Meny, it's Jennifer here. We were very pleased with how our mortgage, spring and summer mortgage, market performed. We had strong volumes. The seasonality and the low rate environment has spurred a higher level of market activity for new originations and refinancing, as Dave mentioned. We also had a very successful employee pricing campaign.

But we'll also note that some of the growth is due to clients switching out of unsecured lines of credit. And some early renewals as clients are taking advantage of the better rates offered on mortgage products. As far as outlook is concerned, we continue to have a strong pipeline, but there is that seasonality to the business that we expect will moderate somewhat in the fall.

I know it doesn't touch you directly per se, but definitely there was a lot of talk this quarter about some issues of veracity of verification in the broker channel. I'm wondering if you have any insight into that and what's your take on that segment of the market?

First of all, we don't originate through brokers.

Right.

But income verification is a key component of our adjudication process. Our applications are only taken by branch lenders and our proprietary mortgage sales force. And for each application we verify income; we have various ways of doing that. And our policies require documents to be retained.

We have underwriting in our credit adjudication center and an application review process that's undertaken in that group, particularly for our mortgage specialist sales force. These credit professionals do income verifications, such as confirmation of employment with [culture] employers, document review. And so we have good processes on new clients.

We originate many of our mortgages from our existing client base since we have multiple ways to verify income, including use of our internal RBC information. Generally, we find clients are prepared to provide other forms of documentation, which are actually easier for them, such as pay statements or income tax forms, which are readily available. And to add to that we have ongoing fraud monitoring of our application process to help detect and prevent mortgage fraud.

As a follow up, do you see those issues as being a risk to the market as a whole or contained? Do you have a view on that?

I think the commentary at the time was that this was approved, but I can't really comment on the industry overall. But I think that the comments, those involved, were that they were contained. From our point of view we feel that we've contained that risk for RBC.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is from Mario Mendonca at TD Securities.

Good morning. If we can go back to Mark Hughes for a moment. When you offered the 30 basis points to 35 basis points, the normalized outlook, what I want to confirm is that was just purely informational only. You weren't really guiding us there on the near term. Is that a fair statement?

Yes, that's correct.

And then going to the 40 basis points to 50 basis points of stressed PCLs, I think we can all appreciate that the banks can manage that, certainly from a capital perspective. But the more challenging thing to gauge is what that would do, not just the PCLs, but the overall effect on the bank, what would that do to earnings?

The broad question is can the bank grow their earnings, grow earnings year over year, in an environment where PCLs are approaching the 40 basis points, 45 basis points, and all the other things are happening to revenue and expenses as a result of that stress scenario you offered us?

Well certainly, in all of these stress scenarios, you do factor in the PCLs. You factor in the impact on earnings. You factor in the impact upon how RWAs grow, et cetera. We do see RBC in those scenarios still producing solid earnings through that period. I think the diversity of our portfolios across industries and geographies still retain a very sound and solid earnings growth potential.

I couldn't possibly imagine the bank losing money. The bank generates CAD2.4 billion in earnings; there's no way that's going to go away in a quarter. I appreciate that it's going to be solidly positive, but do you think it grows in that environment?

I think that depends on the situation at the time.

I would agree. One thing you do see in more troubled times is more draw-downs. So sometimes you see our [NII] going up in that case, but you do have higher impairments and higher PCLs. There's a number of variables that go into that, that make it hard to predict whether you go up or down. But I think as you look at how Mark's framed the overall risk profile, you should be confident in our core earnings ability through that period.

Thank you.

The next question is from Peter Routledge at National Bank Financial.

Hi, thanks, I'll stick with Mark. Looking at page 18 of the presentation, I wondered if you could give us a sense of what loss given default would be in the oil and gas loan categories?

Slide 18 did you say?

Yes, so for E&P or drilling, where would you think --

Well, what we do with our portfolios, as I think the industry does, is we provide you with drawn exposures. And then the way we categorize undrawn exposures is its exposure at default.

And then we provide you with a fair amount of detail in the supplemental as to how that exposure at default is calculated. It is a fairly complicated mathematical equation, because it takes into account many different levels of borrower risk ratings, as well as historical analysis on loss across those risk ratings that we apply to our exposures.

The reason I was being more specific is the set back has LGD by business loans overall. Can I impute the LGDs from your broad business portfolio onto your oil and gas portfolio? Or is there a difference for oil and gas?

There's not a difference for oil and gas.

Okay, thanks.

Then, you've got CAD13.3 billion, roughly, in undrawn. What is your exposure at default? How much of that gets drawn as borrowers approach default? And how much degrees of freedom do you have to cut lines before they can draw?

The way the exposure at default is calculated is, in a default scenario that is the potential that we would be expecting could be drawn. Each loan, of course, is specific and different in terms of the characteristics of its drawing capability. Some loans have covenants, some do not, that would restrict drawings.

I would also acknowledge that in many instances over the past years, as a client is experiencing difficulties, they do draw down the loans before they get to default. So what I think we've come up with is, as the industry has, is that the exposure at default numbers are the calculations that are based upon historical data.

Okay. And the general business exposure default is applicable to oil and gas, without any adjustment?

Yes.

Thanks. And Jennifer, thanks for your comments on your underwriting procedures in mortgages. You gave us a lot of examples of quality assurance.

The question I have is, even if you check documentation, documentation can be misrepresented or altered. How do you -- what checks do you run to insure that the actual documentation you're getting, the employment letters, other forms of income verification, are accurate?

There's a number of ways we can do that, including calls to employers. Also as I mentioned, a good percentage of our new mortgages are originated from existing RBC clients, and so often their payroll would be going into their account with RBC.

So we feel quite comfortable with the processes we have in place, plus the knowledge that we have of the customer, that we can verify that income adequately. And of course you've got income tax returns, which are often what a client will provide to us as evidence of their income levels.

Thank you. The next question is from Sohrab Movahedi of BMO Capital Markets.

Okay, thank you. Couple of quickies.

Mark, you mentioned you have two impaired -- two formations and you actually took specifics against one of them. That level of specifics that you took on that account, how would it have compared to when you are on your stress scenarios?

Actually, pretty good, actually. For example, that particular client was identified earlier in the year when we were doing our original stress testing. We identified the challenges the client would have and the amount we've ended up taking is in line with what our expectations were through the year.

Okay. A lot of the commentary you've provided suggests that while higher loan losses are inevitable, they're not imminent. I wonder if you could just comment what happens to the credit cycle if we stay in a more or less 2% GDP growth environment in Canada, plus or minus either side of that? Will that have the net effect of lengthening the credit cycle?

If I had that much of a crystal ball -- I really can't tell you. I mean, possibly.

So as a chief risk officer, would you rather have a 4% growth environment next year? Or a 2% growth environment?

That's a very good question. (laughter) I would then actually want to understand what the other aspects are, wherein interest rates would be to go with that. So if you give me a combined package, I could certainly see some higher growth being very positive, even for our risk books. But have the continuing on of the benign credit environments, I'd be very happy with as well.

Okay, and so --

It also depends on what the source of growth is too. You could still have 4% growth driven by manufacturing and exports and have a struggling commodity energy cycle. So you've got to look at it holistically. It's a tough --

Fair point. And just one last one.

When you run the stress scenarios, do you then assume interest rates are down to 0%?

Actually, in some of the scenarios we increase interest rates, as well, which you could argue whether that's actually plausible or not. But part of these stress scenarios is actually to try to replicate what could really be a bad situation. We do have scenarios where interest rates are kept very low, while all of the other factors are weakening significantly. But then we also do scenarios where we also add in increased interest rates.

Thank you. Our last question will be from Sumit Malhotra at Scotia Capital.

Thanks, good morning. My questions are likely for Doug McGregor.

Doug, starting with your corporate loan book, you've indicated for some time that we were likely to see the pace of growth start to decelerate from what have been very strong levels. Yet they've continued to run quite strongly this year.

I know there's been some FX noise, but when you look at the underlying trends in corporate lending, do you envision that starting to slow on a core basis as some of the macro headwinds take shape here? Or do you have growth in other geographies that is making up the difference?

Yes, almost all of that growth is in the US. To your comments about half the growth is FX. But we are seeing, frankly, pretty robust demand. I think it's really just a function of the fact that we're expanding our client base and there's a lot of M&A activity going on in the US.

Frankly, we're not seeing that abating, although we've been in rough markets for the better part of a couple of weeks here in terms of the real volatility. So we'll see how that plays out. But the demand's quite high. I think really the longer-term growth is high single-digits. So yes, it's mostly the US and we're seeing pretty good demand.

What about the energy portfolio in particular? Mark mentioned that you're heading into this period of credit redetermination reviews. Again, I know the FX might be skewing things here, but it does look like you've got about a CAD500 million quarter-over-quarter increase in your energy balances. Has that been -- let me just ask you, do you anticipate the outright energy portfolio declining as you go through this period of fall review?

If there's any significant decline, it will be on the difference between committed and drawn. So that as you go through the redetermination, the availability could drop if we're using a new price deck. So that's where you'll see the reduction.

In terms of servicing the industry, we continue to participate in the industry. We are obviously -- we've been in this business for a long time. We think that we have good processes in terms of determining companies' ability to pay. I think to Mark's earlier comments, we are usually a senior lender and we'll continue to be in the business.

It's Mark here. I would echo that in terms of the increase that we had in the quarter, certainly some of it was foreign exchange-related, but some of it was actually some new clients that were put on in the wholesale book.

As Doug has said, we're not afraid of this industry sector. We've dealt with it for decades. I think we have a lot of people that are very strong in their understanding of how to deal with this sector. So if the right client opportunities come along, we will take advantage of them.

Thank you. This is all the time we have for questions. I would like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Dave McKay.

Just want to thank everybody for attending our Q3 call today and your questions and participation. We look forward to seeing you next quarter in Q4. Have a good day, thank you.

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.