Royal Bank of Canada at National Bank Financial Services Conference (Virtual) Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : Well, one, I want to start off with one of the bigger, I guess, takeaways from your business performance last -- over the past year, and it's the massive mortgage growth and the massive deposit growth and industry leading growth, and it's not from a small base or anything like that. So these are pretty big numbers. Both on the mortgage side and on the deposit side, what are some of the strategies you chose to enact that helped deliver those outcomes?

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : Okay. That was very thorough. If I look, though, at some of the other categories in the P&C Bank cards, personal loans, commercial and I stack those up against the peer group. I'm seeing Royal on par, in some cases, below the group average in terms of growth, albeit in a down market for -- in some cases. Like is that a situation where your product mix like travel rewards, in particular, was one of the factors that explains that outcome? Are there other issues like you missed some opportunities in commercial or wherever? Like what's going on there to explain that? And then what are you doing to address it, I guess?

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : Maybe just to actually that -- is that something that -- it seems to me as an outsider, that'd be an easy thing to do. You got somebody with a lot of deposits or a bunch of customers with a lot of deposits and doing nothing and convert them to mutual fund clients. Is that, I mean, easier said than done, like have you had to enhance any strategies or whatever to kind of make that happen?

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : So I asked you this question on the Q1 call, but we got a bit of maybe more time to kind of dive into it. But I look at -- and in Royal's case, I think it's $40 billion or so of consumer deposits in the Canadian bank, an increase versus last year. I look at that number and I think, well, that's great. But how does that affect the lending outlook? Are people even going to have to borrow money outside of mortgages. Obviously, there's borrowing going on mortgages, but cards and all these other categories, that's -- that looks to me like a pretty big headwind from a credit demand standpoint.

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : We lost Neil. All right. We'll hold on a moment. I think they're getting Neil back. I think they are. There we go. Yes. Okay. I don't know where we left off.

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : Okay. The -- yes. I asked another presenter earlier today, and this is all in the vein of consumer credit demand. But from a policy standpoint, are you thinking at all about some measures that the government may introduce that could structurally change the consumer credit market in Canada, like UBI or -- well, I'm thinking of that one, particularly. I know it's probably a few years away, but it might be something worth to talk about?

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : One regulatory change that's coming, I guess, in the near-term is the revision of the B20 and a focus on high debt-to-income ratio of borrowers being a bigger percentage of the originations, that seems to be their hot button. Any thoughts on timing of a potential change and how Royal is

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : How about the fee structures in the industry, and it's a bigger topic in the U.S., stuff like overdraft, these get a lot of attention, not so much in Canada. And in the past, actually, fees have been the lever that keeps getting pulled to drive revenue growth, like what's your perspective? And how are you adapting to dealing with your customers that way?

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : I want to sneak one more in on expense management. The past year was obviously about battening down the hatches. You've got emerging growth on the horizon. You've got competitive threats from big tech. Where are we now? Like the tightening on expenses behind us, are you back in full on investment mode? How are you approaching things?

Question: Gabriel Dechaine - National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division - Analyst : Well, we are into over time now. Neil, it was a good through and interesting discussion with you. I hope you have -- the rest of your meetings go very well. And thanks again for joining the conference.