Question

Brief background and history of bank of Montreal (BMO). Half page

Answer 1

The Bank of Montreal was established in 23 June 1817,when a group of merchants signed the Articles of Association, formally creating the "Montreal Bank". The signors of the document include Robert Armour, John C. Bush, Austin Cuvillier, George Garden, Horatio Gates, James Leslie, George Moffatt, John Richardson, and Thomas A. Turner.The bank was first located in rooms rented on Rue Saint-Paul, Montreal, before moving to its permanent building on Rue Saint-Paul in 1818.In the same year, the bank opened its first branch in Quebec City; and several offices in Upper Canada, including Amherstburg, Kingston, Perth, and York (present day Toronto).The bank also opened its first foreign permanent office in 1818, opening an office in Willam Street in New York City.

Expansion into Upper Canada was halted in 1824, after legislation from the Parliament of Upper Canada forbade bank branches whose head offices were not based in Upper Canada from operating.In 1838, the bank reentered the Upper Canadian market with the purchase of the Bank of the People, a bank based in Toronto.BMO was permitted to open its own branches in the area, after Upper Canada and Lower Canada were united to create the Province of Canada in 1841.Shortly after the two colonies merged, the bank opened branches into Cobourg, Belleville, Brockville, and Ottawa.

Expansion into the Maritimes and Western Canada was facilitated following Canadian Confederation. In 1877, the bank opened its first branch into Western Canada, with the opening of a branch in Winnipeg. New branches were also opened in the Maritimes, in Halifax, Moncton, and Saint John completed shortly after Confederation. The Bank of Montreal established branches in Newfoundland Colony on 31 January 1895, at the behest of the colonial government. The colonial government of Newfoundland made the request to the Bank of Montreal four days after the collapse of the Commercial Bank and Union Bank of Newfoundland on 10 December 1894.

By 1907, the bank had branches in every province of Atlantic Canada, with the opening of a branch in Charlottetown.Expansion into the Maritimes was further facilitated with the acquisition of the Exchange Bank of Yarmouth in 1903, the People’s Bank of Halifax in 1905, and the People's Bank of New Brunswick in 1906.

The early 20th century also saw the bank acquire several financial institutions that helped increase its presence in Newfoundland, and areas west of Quebec, including the Ontario Bank in 1906, the Bank of British North America in 1918, and the Merchants Bank of Canada in 1921.During this period, the bank also acquired the Montreal-based Molson Bank in 1925.

In 1960, the Bank of Montreal moved its operational headquarters to a seventeen-storey structure next to its historic head office.The building served as the bank's operational headquarters until 1977, when it was moved to First Canadian Place on Bay Street in Toronto in 1977.The structure's was named after the slogan of the bank, the First Canadian Bank,a slogan that was introduced in 1969. The bank's present "M-Bar" logo was also introduced during this time, in 1967. However, the bank's legal headquarters remains at the historic Montreal head office, with First Canadian Place formally listed as the "executive office" of the bank.

In 1984, the bank acquired Chicago-based Harris Bank (through its parent, Harris Bankcorp), later rebranded as BMO Harris Bank.In 1987, the bank acquired stock brokerage Nesbitt, Thomson and Company. Several years later, the bank assumed control of two retail branches formerly belonging to the Standard Chartered Bank of Canada.

In 1994, the Bank of Montreal became the first Canadian bank to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.In 1995, the bank opened its first branch in Guangzhou, formally receiving a license to operate the branch on 20 November 1996.In doing so the bank became the first Canadian bank to receive a license to operate in China.During the 1990s, BMO acquired a number of other banks in the Chicagoland area, merging them under the Harris Bank name, including the Suburban Bancorp, Inc. in 1994; and Household Bank in 1999.

In 1998, the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada announced they have agreed to a merger pending approval from the government. Government regulators later blocked the proposed merger, along with a similar proposal by the Toronto-Dominion Bank to merge with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.Although the banks did not merge, in 2000, the Bank of Montreal, together with the Royal Bank of Canada, merged their merchant payment processor businesses to form Moneris Solutions.

In 2006, BMO bought BCPBank, a Schedule C financial institution that was the Canadian division of Banco Comercial Português, with eight branches in the Toronto-West area.In 2009, BMO purchased AIG's Canadian life insurance business, AIG Life Insurance Company of Canada, for approximately $330 million CAD. The transaction, including 400,000 customers and 300 employees, made BMO the second-biggest life insurer among Canadian banks. The new component was renamed BMO Life Assurance Company.In the same year, the Bank of Montreal acquired the Diners Club International's North American franchise from Citibank. The transaction gave BMO exclusive rights to issue Diners cards in the U.S. and Canada.

In October 2010, the bank became the first Canadian bank to incorporate in China, with branches in China operating as BMO ChinaCo.In December 2010, BMO announced the purchase of Milwaukee-based Marshall & Ilsley, and was later amalgamated with its Harris Bank operations.When the transaction completed, M&I Bank, along with current Harris Bank branches were rebranded BMO Harris Bank.In 2014, the bank acquired London-based Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, later re-branding it as BMO Commercial Property Trust in 2019.In September 2015, BMO agreed to acquire General Electric Co. subsidiary GE Capital's transportation-finance unit. The business acquired has USD $8.7-billion (CAD $11.5-billion) of assets, 600 employees and 15 offices in the U.S. and Canada. Exact terms were not disclosed but the final price would be based on the value of the assets at closing plus a premium according to the parties.

BMO and Simplii Financial (a subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) were the targets of hackers in May 2018, who claimed to have compromised the systems of both banks and stolen information on a combined 90,000 customers (50,000 from BMO).^[An email sent from a Russian address and attributed to the hackers demanded a ransom of US$1 million from each company paid via Ripple by 11:59 pm on May 28, 2018 or the information would be released on "fraud forum [sic] and fraud community [sic].