Royal Bank of Canada has unveiled an updated brand name and logo that will represent the company around the world.

Effective immediately, the new master corporate brand name for the organization will be RBC Financial Group, and the letters “RBC” will become an umbrella under which each of the company’s five business platforms will operate worldwide.

“One of our key strategies is expansion into the U.S. and other niche markets around the world,” says Gord Nixon, president and chief executive officer, RBC Financial Group. “We want to be able to use a common brand name and logo wherever we operate in order to build awareness of our total business activities and to leverage our brand’s positive attributes with customers, employees and investors globally. Our hope is that with the updated logo, ‘Leo’ will soon become as recognized around the world as it has been in Canada.”

In Canada, where the Royal Bank brand name and logo are a deep-rooted part of the Canadian corporate landscape, the brand name change will be effective immediately with all business platforms adopting the letters “RBC” (RBC Capital Markets, RBC Global Services, RBC Royal Bank, RBC Insurance, RBC Investments), but signage across the country will be replaced in a phased roll-out. Full implementation in Canada is expected to be completed by 2004.

In the U.S., where the brand name and logo are not well known, but where a number of acquisitions have recently been made, the implementation will occur more rapidly. In the past two years, Royal Bank of Canada has acquired Centura Banks, Inc. of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Dain Rauscher Corporation of Minneapolis, Prism Financial Corporation of Chicago, Prism Builder Finance Group of Houston, Liberty Life Insurance Company of Greenville, South Carolina, and has agreed to acquire Tucker Anthony Sutro Corporation of Boston subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. The new brand names of RBC Centura, RBC Prism, RBC Builder Finance and RBC Liberty Insurance, and the new signage will be implemented immediately. The name RBC Dain Rauscher will become effective November 1, 2001.

Outside North America, former Royal Trust offices in London, Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, including the former Perpetual Fund Services of Australia, will now fall under the RBC Global Services platform and signs displaying the new logo will be going up shortly. In addition, RBC Royal Bank of Canada will be used in the Caribbean and some other international markets. Towards the end of the year, corporate and investment banking offices of RBC Dominion Securities outside of Canada will be renamed RBC Capital Markets, consistent with the firm’s North American brands.