Royal Bank of Canada announced Friday the launch of its normal course issuer bid to purchase, for cancellation, up to 25 million of its common shares through the facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

According to the bank, the share buy-back will enable it to balance the imperatives of maintaining strong capital ratios with the ongoing need to generate shareholder value.

The shares that may be repurchased represent approximately 3.8% of the bank’s outstanding common shares. As of June 17, there were 661,196,699 common shares of the bank outstanding.

Purchases under the normal course issuer bid may commence on June 24, and continue for a period of one year.

As of June 13, the bank had purchased 18,034,137 common shares at an average price of $54.89 under the bank’s current normal course issuer bid, which will expire on June 23.