The Postal History of the Royal Bank of Canada
The Royal Bank of Canada is Canada's largest bank, employs 70,000 full-time and part-time staff and operates in 34 countries around the world. The collection traces RBC's start as a small merchant bank in Halifax established in 1869, it's expansion into the Caribbean and Latin America in the early 1900s following Canadian trade and then finally into the rest of the world.
The following grid shows the transition of RBC's identity beginning as the Merchants' Bank of Halifax in the 19th century, Royal Bank of Canada in the 20th century and finally rebranding itself as RBC in 2001. A sample of covers are shown relative to each identity, number of branches and employees. Unfortunately, modern material is hard to acquire which explains the gap in 1974 - 2000.
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| 1869 | 1900 | 1901 | 1961 | 1962 | 1973 | 1974 | 2000 | 2001 | 2008 (Q4)1 | |
| Employees | 4 | 245 | 256 | 16,541 | 17,602 | 28,225 | 31,094 | 49,232 | 57,568 | 73,323 |
| Branches | 1 | 40 | 41 | 1,040 | 1,084 | 1,409 | 1,470 | 1,639 | 2,041 | 1,741 |
