Royal Bank Of Canada (RY) September 2026 Conference Transcript

All right. Good morning. Welcome back, everyone. Our next presentation, we have Royal Bank of Canada. Joining me today from RBC is their CFO, Catherine Gibson. Catherine, welcome back.

Thank you very much. It's great to be here.

Great. Thanks a lot. It's been a little more than a year since Investor Day. Can you update us on your progress toward the strategic goals outlined at that event?

Yeah, for sure. it's hard to believe that it's almost been a year and a half since investor day and the time has just flown by and we're really excited about the progress that we've made against our investor day strategy that we communicated as well as our target so i thought i could break it down into three pieces for you like what we've accomplished to date where we see ourselves today and then a bit of a you know what does that mean as we look going forward so what we've accomplished so far we're feeling really good on the progress that we've made against the strategy the targets you'll see that some of the targets were already hitting those targets so if i start with our our canadian business definitely seeing growth in our canadian business and i'll reference q3 is kind of our recent results that have come out. So on mortgages, seeing really good growth. Mortgages were up 4% year-over-year in line with our guidance. It's very important to us to be focusing on client growth. And so from a market share perspective, that 4% equated to us taking about 50% of the market share just in that quarter-over-quarter growth. We're also seeing really good growth in our Avion acquisition. We hit a historical high in Q3 with our acquisitions. And the other item I would just call out is on our commercial deposits. We had a 9% year-over-year growth in our commercial deposits. And again, that equated to about 50% of the market share growth in a year-over-year basis. Now, it's not just Canada. I know World Bank of Canada, we get a focus on the Canadian front, But we're also seeing growth in our global businesses as well. Our investment banking, we're seeing increasing market share. We've just recently announced our focus on building a global transaction bank. And then if you look at our U.S. region results, also making really good progress on the strategy that we outlined on Investor Day of really focusing on like a one region, one RBC focus. And so we're moving through that quite well. So where does that take us? Where are we today? In Q3, we reported a ROE of just over 18% on a CET1 basis of 13.5, which, again, we were very pleased with. And that's been a focus of growing that ROE over multiple years. And if you look back, you know, in 2024, we had an ROE of 15.5. In 2025, that was 16.7. And now year-to-date for 2026, that's already at 17.6. And what has underpinned that has been a combined focus on improving our revenue productivity as well as driving cost efficiencies. So on the revenue productivity front, there's a couple of items to call out there. If we look at our NIM, we've had our NIM expand over the last two years by 18 basis points. And then we've also seen a metric that we threw out there for Investor Day was a focus on increasing our revenue per RWA. And so we've seen a 15 to 20 basis points increase there, really underpinned by the growth that we're seeing in wealth management as well as capital markets. And then on the cost efficiency front, in Q3, we had an efficiency ratio at the all-bank level of just over 52%, so ahead of our investor day target of 53%. And that's reflecting our ongoing focus on driving cost efficiencies. It also is reflective of our success on our HSBC cost synergies, where we achieved $760 million ahead of schedule. So feeling really good about that, and that's even before we see the AI benefits that we called out at our investment day coming on board. Now, the next part, the third part, I would expect the question would be, well, what does that mean going forward? You've, you know, an ROE of 18%, these efficiency ratios, you're hitting some of the targets that you've put out there for, you know, investor day. And the way that we're thinking about that is we have a medium-term objective of 17% plus, and we add emphasis to that plus. You know, the plus means that we're not holding ourselves back. We'll continue to see expansion on the ROE front. Now, why do we feel that we've got, you know, growth continuing to underpin that as we go forward? There's three things that we called out at our investor day that underpinned our targeted ROE, and they're still coming on board. One I just briefly mentioned was our AI benefits. So we had a target of $700 to $1 billion, and that was net of investment. So we were very clear it was net of investment. We've been at that for a couple of years now, and we're really starting to see hitting the milestones with the scale-ups that come on board in 2027. We've also called out our HSBC revenue synergies. We've put out a target of $300 million. so there's a good portion of that still to come online in 2027 and then the other items that I would mention would be in our US region and so I commented on how we're pleased with the progress that we're seeing there but there's still areas where we're looking for that to continue to improve on efficiency on our funding optimization as well as on our top line revenue growth so feeling kind of really good on kind of the journey so far where we're currently positioned. You know, I think we're in a really good foundational place of strength, and we've got some tailwinds that are within our control as we think about the headway as we point going forward.

Excellent. You know, one of the things that maybe has been contributed to the ROE recently has been the capital markets business. How should we think about the sustainability of profitability of capital markets, you know, from the current level?

Yeah, great question, and definitely a very popular question has been around sustainability of capital markets, sustainability as wealth management as well. As we've seen, constructive markets and constructive markets have definitely been a driver in helping us set record levels in both wealth management as well as capital markets. So the specifics, excuse me, to capital markets, I would say it has been a driver, but it hasn't been the only driver. We've been investing in that business for years, and, you know, we're seeing the returns from that. We've been investing in our technology. We've been investing in our talent. And as part of our growth strategy, we've also been very focused in growing in a stable manner. And so when you look at capital markets and the underlying components of our business, yes, we've got global markets and equities, which can be volatile with markets, but we've also got corporate banking, and so we've seen good growth there. We expect that to be stable as we go forward. We set up a couple of years ago RBC Clear, which is our transaction banking in the U.S., seeing really good momentum, but again, expect that to be stable as we go forward. And then investment banking has also been a component that, you know, in talking with clients, hearing positive momentum as we go forward. So could there be a pullback in markets? Yes, right? I'm sure we could see that at some point in time. What I would mention, though, is kind of back to, like, we have seen strong growth across all of our business segments in RBC. So capital markets, wealth management have definitely been two of those components. But in addition to that, we've seen strong growth in our personal banking and our commercial banking, and that's been underpinned by volume growth, NIM expansion, as well as a focus on cost efficiency. So if we find ourselves in that spot, we still have this diversification. And we also have the diversification in wealth and capital markets, diversified across regions as well as across products.

I mean, the shift towards the discussion towards capital allocation. Earlier this year, OSFI announced a permanent reduction in the domestic stability buffer, lowering the CET1 capital requirement, so 11%, compared to, I think, 13.5% in 3Q. Given the new requirement, what do you consider an appropriate level of capital for the bank? How quickly do you want to reach it? And how has that changed your – how has the change affected your capital allocation priorities towards buybacks?

Yeah, great question. So a couple of components that maybe steps through. I would start with maybe a headline in that no change to how we kind of see our capital deployment framework and our priorities. So I'll step into that. But first, let me start with, like, from a CET1 range, we feel comfortable that in this environment, running in a range of 12.5 to 13.5. And with OSFI's announcement to bring down the DSB buffer by those 50 basis points, we are targeting to run in the middle of that range, around the 13%. Given the environment, we think that it's appropriate to be running with an additional buffer. You know, there can be unforeseen risks that come at us, so we're, you know, well-placed to address that. There's also potential, you know, opportunities that may come along, so we're well-placed to address that as well. I go back to we're in no hurry to change the, like, to drive that down because we're hitting our financial metrics with an ROE of just over 18%. From a capital deployment framework, our number one priority is to deploy into organic growth. And that organic growth is we're guided in that we're not constrained and that we have to choose one area over the other. We have capital to deploy across all of our businesses. What we are guided by is that the area needs to hit our, you know, targeted premium ROE as well as premium growth. And in the third quarter, we put out just over $80 billion in loan growth, and that was from our retail book, that was from our commercial book, that was from our corporate book. And when you look at that compared to our peers, that amount is larger than the next two added together. So we are definitely deploying into organic. Second in our kind of framework of priority would be dividends. So it's very important to us to deliver a sustained dividend increase. And the range that we look to operate within is a 40% to 50% payback ratio. And our target is to get into the middle of that range, so basically growing our dividends in line with our earnings per share. Third on the list you've asked about is buybacks and is also a very popular topic as well. So for buybacks, we continue to see buybacks as a tactical lever. We're well aware of our valuation, and we continue to buy back because we believe strongly in our intrinsic value. It's not our only financial metric, though, that we look at. And so when we think about our buybacks and kind of the level pace of our buybacks, We also are well aware of kind of the impact on ROE, the impact on earnings per share, as well as the impact on book value per share, another important valuation metric. And I would share with you that over the last four quarters, our book value per share has grown 10%. If we hadn't done buybacks, it would have been 12%. So, again, we feel comfortable that buybacks is an important tactical lever that we can use to keep us within this 12.5 and 13.5 range and still hit the right valuation metric. And just to kind of finish out that framework, we've got four items on the list. The fourth would be inorganic. We're in no hurry, I would say, to be deploying inorganic where we would see, you know, something would be maybe a tuck-in, but, again, our number one priority continues to be organic, followed by dividends and then buybacks with a tactical focus.

Maybe drilling down into the organic aspect, the balance sheet growth in both loans and deposits was in line with or slightly better than peers in 3Q. What are you seeing in loan demand, particularly across commercial versus retail customers? And then looking ahead to 2027, how do you balance the potential benefit of government spending for Canadian commercial loan growth against a possible headwind from higher tariffs?

Great. So starting with, I'll hit residential, commercial, and then kind of a bit more into that 2021 outlook with tariffs and investment from the government of Canada, these major infrastructure projects. On the retail side, we're seeing strong growth, and I commented in the first question around mortgages, really pleased with what we're seeing and client-driven growth. Our focus has been largely on switch, so as mortgages are renewing, people switching between banks, we've seen really good results there. We've also been very focused on retention. Our retention are at historical highs. We're seeing retention in the low 90s. And that's important to keep a focus on because from a margin perspective, as you know this well, Brian, is that from a margin perspective, from a renewal it's higher because you don't have the same acquisition costs that you incur on that first mortgage. We're also seeing strong results for credit cards. And so on the Avion, I mentioned earlier as well that we're continuing to see that at a historical high when we looked year-over-year on the growth side. On the commercial side, where we are seeing strong growth across the balance sheets or strong growth on the deposits and continued growth on the lending side, Our deposits grew 9% year over year, and that's really a reflection of our focus and also our deep relationships with our clients. And it's really important in this time for a funding perspective as it equates to capital efficient earnings that we're seeing come through. On the lending side, we are seeing impact from tariffs impacting certain sectors. But I would say the diversification of our business is playing out quite well and that our loan growth overall has been up 4%. But I would split it into kind of two parts here. We are seeing sectors that are impacted by tariffs that are having slow loan growth. Commercial real estate is just one of those areas. Commercial real estate makes about 40% of our book. And over the last four quarters, it's grown at about half a point. What we are seeing, though, offset that, though, is strong growth in agriculture. We're seeing growth in technology, health care, and also public sector. And we're also seeing it play out different across the regions. The tariff sectors are more heavily concentrated in Ontario. So we're seeing slower growth in Ontario. But what we're then seeing is stronger growth in Alberta, reflecting, you know, the oil, energy, agriculture. Prairies is strong with agriculture, and we're also seeing strong growth on the East Coast side. So all in all, that's kind of how we're seeing like a retail growth framing up in this current environment as well as our commercial growth. Now, your question around what does that look like, because there's obviously lots of headlines around tariffs, But at the same time, we're seeing lots of headlines around these major investment spend in Canada. So what we're seeing from our clients is on the commercial side is continued conservatism. Can't skip the word out. And what that is equating to is that we're seeing our clients be very thoughtful in that they're holding back on big, major investment spend, but still spending into the operational space, being very diligent on managing their costs, and at the same time being creative and thinking about how do they transition their spend. And we're seeing that with larger clients, being able to pivot a bit more in this space. On the consumer side, we're continuing to see kind of resilience come through in that we just recently got out, received our credit card data, which gives us a good indication of where clients are spending and their level of spend. And what we've seen is that their level of spend continues to be high on discretionary, whether it's travel, whether it's going out to residents, restaurants, which gives us confidence that that will continue as we go forward. And so we're also feeling no optimism because we've heard a lot of headlines around the Government of Canada, major infrastructure. And so we don't see that kicking in until the end of 27, probably more into 2028. But I think we are really well-placed to be supporting our clients as we see that growth come online and to support new clients that benefit from these major infrastructure projects that come online.

I'd also like maybe a little bit more detail, specifically on the inorganic side. Do you see any opportunities to deploy capital inorganically, particularly in the U.S., to expand the city national franchise? Or do you see further opportunities to deploy capital in your wealth management segment?

Another popular question, sitting with high capital levels, I would frame it as our bar is, like, super high when it comes to M&A. and in connection with that though you'd expect that we would always be kind of keeping an eye open to the opportunities that are around so for us to be open to you know M&A it would need to be you know on our strategy it would need to be a strong cultural fit and we need to be like super confident about the value that it would bring to our to our shareholders because we've seen all too often areas where there's M&A and it's destructive to value. Where we would be open to M&A, and I'd frame it from a strategic lens, and when we look at our overall strategy, we don't feel like we're sitting with gaps in our strategy, that we need to buy something to fill a hole. We feel that we've got all the right ingredients to drive it forward. Where we would be looking to use a tuck-in through an M&A, would be to accelerate strategy. I know you've asked about specific areas. Like where we would be more open would be in the U.S., where we think we'd be able to accelerate our wealth management business, accelerate our commercial banking. In the U.K. as well, look to accelerate our wealth management there. Also, like really small little ads. We've done one recently in Canada where we were looking at building out a tech solution And instead, we're able to buy a small company called Pinch that was, you know, a digitization of mortgage origination. So we're able to bring that in, and it basically accelerates our path going forward. So in a nutshell, high, high bar, and really, you know, looking at balancing the operational risk with the value that we would see clearly come out from an acquisition.

Great. Maybe, like, just moving on to NIM and net interest income. You know, after the Bank of Canada has held rate steady through much of 2026, there's some people are concerned that inflationary pressures could prompt a rate increase. You know, maybe how would that – talk about how would that impact the NIM trajectory? Sure.

Yeah, definitely a lot of discussion around what does the interest rate outlook materialize to be, whether that's in the U.S. or in Canada. Our economics team, their forecast reflects a more immediate kind of increase in the U.S. And then for Canada, I guess an increase as we go into 2027. So a couple of increases is what they're expecting. Now, what does that mean for RBC if we were to see interest rates start to rise? Where I would start is at maybe the top of the house. And at the top of the house where we focus is really on net interest income excluding trading, and I'll come into NIM in a second. But we focus on the net interest income excluding trading because we feel it's really important to be aware of NIM, but at the same time volume. And in our Q3 remarks, we had called out that our net interest income excluding trading is growing at 7% year-to-date. So it really seemed that strong growth in line with our guidance. And then we also noted that there's a couple of headwinds that were more almost like accounting anomalies. And so with those items excluded, our net interest income excluding trading was at 11%. And those items that I'm talking about, one would be from our HSBC headwinds from our purchase price equation as that rolls off. And then the other item I just wanted to touch on would be in our capital market space. is I've had a few questions around why we were showing adjusted numbers. And so in our capital market space, we have certain transactions from an accounting lens where one side of it, the revenue side, goes into other income, but the funding side of it will show up in net interest income. So when you're looking at NIM, all bank NIM on its own, you get one side of the cost but not the actual revenue. And so that's why we felt it was important to pull out and show that number. And that's also why we feel it's important to be focused on net interest income, excluding trading. Now, from a Canadian banking perspective, though, we do feel that NIM is an important metric. And our guidance in Q3 is that we expect to see Canadian banking NIM stable as we go throughout Q4. And we haven't given any guidance outside of Q4 at this time. But as we look into Q4, continue to expect to see benefits from our structural tractor deposit strategy. continue to expect that we'll see clients' flows moving from our term deposits into investments, which is a positive overall to revenue, a bit of a headwind for NIM, and then continue to see heightened competition in this space. Now to your question, the broader question around what does it look like overall on rising interest rates, a couple of things that I would leave you with. One, in our disclosures, we note that a 25 basis point increase on the short end of the curve translates roughly into about $35 million annually net interest income, so you would have that impact that would flow through. The other item to be aware of would be on the tractors. You don't see it on the long end because of this deposit tractor strategy that we have in place, but if you were to see an increase in that five-year swap, you would see those benefits continue to push out. The third thing I would call out is just in a higher interest rate environment, what we have seen so far have been client flows moving, right, from term deposits into investment products. As interest rates rise, you might see a pause and even a reversion of those flows moving back. So definitely a positive from a funding perspective, but it would potentially be a negative on the revenue side as the margin that we earn on investment products would be the higher than the margin that we earn on our term deposits. And then just the last item is that as you see interest rates move around, there's always kind of a question on competition and how that kind of flows through and the impact on your pricing for products.

Great. Maybe switching over to credit quality. You know, PCLs on impaired loans are relatively stable in 3Q, both year-over-year and sequentially, while PCLs on performing loans remained de minimis. Given the current economic environment and potential adverse effects of higher tariffs, are you comfortable with the reserve position?

We're feeling very comfortable with our reserve position. Let me take you why we have that level of comfort. There's a couple of components to step through here. So first off, I would start with our IFRS 9 calculation for stage 1 and 2 provisioning. For IFRS 9, our calculation has five scenarios. We have an upside scenario, we have a base scenario, and then we actually have three downside scenarios as we feel that you need more than just one to really capture the different dynamics that we're seeing play out in the macroeconomic and the overall environment, Q2 last year, when global tariffs really hit the front page, we introduced a new scenario in our downside, and that was capturing a scenario focused on tariff, like a tariff-driven recession. And that scenario is a bit more on the severe side because it assumes roughly 25% across the board you know tariff in Canada which would definitely drive the country into recession our base case also captures tariff impacts it basically reflects what are the tariffs that are currently in place and how that is expected to impact over the next 12 months the weights to these scenarios another important measure to be aware of we haven't disclosed externally what those weights are but what i would leave with you as you think about this is that the amount of weight that we have on those downside scenarios if we were to put any more on those downside scenarios that would basically give you our base case and so you can leave you know believing that we've got a sizable portion of weight on those downsides how is that translating into our overall provisions on our retail book the provision that we're currently sitting with is equal to basically our 20-year high so we're feeling comfortable from the overall calculation how we've captured the environment two other you know quick items to you know provide some color on is one is that we are seeing gradual improvement in our overall kind of stage three pcl whether it's retail book and the consumer book, and, you know, that gives us an indication of the credit quality. And then also from an economic outlook, we are, you know, looking to more positive improvement as we go throughout the year. 2026, we've seen the unemployment rate improve in Canada, and as we look into 2027, the outlook has further improvement on unemployment, increase in GDP, as well as the housing market to turn around. So we're feeling, back to my opening comments around, You know, feeling comfortable that we've got a solid provision on the books for the environment that we currently are finding ourselves in.

Okay, maybe a little bit more specifically on the trade policy and tariff issue.

Maybe you can quantify RBC's exposure to higher tariffs and discuss how you're seeing clients prepared to manage their ongoing impact. starting with like a broader kind of macro comment like what we are seeing across Canada is that the economy continues to be resilient and we're seeing that materialize on the consumer side and we're seeing that materialize on the commercial side as as well and I think a big part of that is with KUSMA or USNCA, 80% of the trade between Canada and the US is still free trade as it falls underneath KUSMA. You probably have seen headlines around Section 338. Those new tariffs target only 5% of the trade between Canada and the US. And so it translates into about a 0.4 impact to GDP. So at a macro level, it's not viewed as being significant. And so overall, that is translating into we are seeing sectors that are being impacted. And I touched on it briefly earlier in my comment that, yes, there are sectors being impacted. So we're seeing that through auto, steel, aluminum, forestry, transportation. But at the same time, we're also seeing other sectors that are growing. Overall, as I said just a few minutes ago, we are seeing gradual improvement in our stage three PCL through both our retail book, our commercial book, and then for those sectors impacted, you're asking for a bit more on the specifics, for those sectors impacted, when we look at the last 12 months and the PCL that we booked, we actually are seeing gradual improvement in that space as well what to expect or your question around how are you know our clients getting ready for this or how they've been responding i would say like what we've been seeing and i touched on it a bit earlier is just this conservatism we're finding that they are are well placed in that you know they're they're managing their liquidity they're managing their costs They're being really thoughtful about their investments. Consumers are doing the same thing. We're seeing them sit with liquidity. They're managing their payments. They're still spending. And so they're positioning themselves well, given kind of the certain sectors where we are seeing the impact. And I think they also position themselves very well for what we're expecting to see from the Canadian economy growing as we go into 2027, and then the additional benefit of these major infrastructure projects coming online.

Great. You know, in regards to the strategy, RBC recently announced the launch of global transaction banking, which unifies capabilities across business lines. Can you walk us through the strategic initiative and explain how it could enhance the financial objectives you previously discussed?

Yeah. So we currently have transactional banking in different pockets. So in Canada, we have transaction banking. It's called RBC Edge. In the U.S., we've recently, over the last couple of years, set up transaction banking in capital markets under the title of RBC Clear. And then we also have transaction banking within City National. Our recent announcement is in response to what we are hearing from our clients and what we're seeing as an opportunity is to bring all of that together and basically build a focused, you know, global transaction banking. So putting it under, you know, two leaders with a focus on, you know, go to market with one client strategy and then behind the scenes, you know, building one cohesive transaction banking. Focus is in North America, but then also, you know, with the intention to be building this out globally. Maybe a question around, you know, what is our right to win in this space? And that's where I would point to RBC Clear. Two years ago, or before we were even setting up RBC Clear, we had clients coming to us and saying, like, given your strong balance sheet, your strong credit rating, We would really like to see you in this space. So we've quickly mobilized and been really pleased with the progress that we've been making with RBC Clear in the deposits that we've grown and with the clients that we've brought on board. We have over 235 clients on board. A third of them are S&P clients. So it just gives you an idea of the clients that have come on board. So it gives us confidence that we've been quickly able to build from scratch RBC Clear, and we've got the experience, we've got that momentum behind us and now we'll be playing that strongly into now this global transaction banking. And two other items to just quickly call out on that space is that global transaction banking brings in deposits, brings in ancillary revenue. It's a very stable business. We're back to the clients who are asking for us to come into the market on this space. So it's really important, deposits, drives, you know, that more economical funding, and then we've got the ancillary revenue attached to it as well.

I'd also like to touch on the one RBC strategy and how it has improved your ability to serve clients. What other benefits do you expect from it? I'll start with your Canadian money-in franchise. And can you speak to your underlying strengths that make this possible, including positioning in wealth and asset management?

Yeah, no, a great question. And it's something that, if I go back to our investor day, like one RBC that has been like that secret sauce throughout all of it. So on the money in, I'd come at it in two components. Kind of that first component is that we're very focused on driving deep relationships with our clients. So from a client acquisition on the personal banking side, it typically starts with a core checking account. And we're very focused then on, you know, within a short period of time, deepening that relationship with the client. And so we start with this core deposits, which, again, is really key to our funding. And within 30 days, our goal is to have at least 40% to have another product or service with RBC. And that has translated strongly. When we look at our overall book, what we are seeing is that 40% of our clients have over three-plus products with us. That is by far a lead against any of our peers in the Canadian space. And so with that, this deep relationship builds these breadth of products and services. And what we are seeing is it plays into when money is in motion. you know, specific to your question, this money in motion, what we've seen is clients are moving their flows from term deposits into investments. And given this depth of relationships, we're retaining those flows. Wealth management, when you think about the breadth and the scale of our products and services that we have in Canada, what we are seeing is that those flows are moving within to our wealth management space. In our wealth management space, our flows have been up 20% year over year. And so it's a win-win for our clients. As they're looking for investment products, it's all within the RBC. So back to that one RBC, it's all within the one RBC. So it's supportive for our clients and at the same time also beneficial for RBC as we're retaining them and as they're moving from term to investment products, we're also seeing higher revenue given the margins attached.

Okay, and then, Mia, let's talk a little bit about the U.S. segment, including city national and capital markets. In 3Q, you achieved the 12% ROE target a little bit earlier than expected, while the efficiency ratio approached the low 70% range. Do you expect this momentum to continue? And now that the turnaround is on track, what is your expansion plans for city national?

Yeah, we're really pleased with the, I guess you're hearing me say that a couple of times, really pleased, but I would say the overall banner is that the Q3 results were a great example of us hitting our targets, continuing to grow the business in the U.S. In the third quarter, we printed a 12% ROE, and also we're towards the low end of the 70s from an efficiency perspective, and that's really our strategy coming together by that one RBC, one region for the U.S. And City National has been a key part of that. In the third quarter, they printed $184 million bottom line impact, and that's really been a reflection of focus on driving costs down as well as driving profitable growth on the top line. And so when we think about what's going forward, back to the three pillars for the U.S. region that we outlined. One was, you know, opportunity around efficiency. Second was opportunity around optimization of our funding. And then the third was looking at top-line growth. And so when I think about the components that we have in the U.S., City National has done a great job on driving, you know, top-line growth as well as driving efficiencies, but there's still so much opportunity to go. They've been investing heavily in building out the infrastructure necessary to accommodate the size of that business. We're expecting to see that roll off as we reach the end of that infrastructure build, so that will be beneficial to our efficiency metric as that rolls off. We're also seeing the benefit, again, of that one RBC, one region. There's opportunities for us to centralize, standardize more of the back office activities for all of the businesses in the U.S. We're seeing already opportunity on the funding optimization. We've got sweeps in our wealth management U.S. business, and that is enabling us to fund loan growth through looking at our legal entity structure different. And then on the revenue side, again, we're seeing opportunity in looking at this through that one region. And that wealth management, just an example, wealth management clients are looking for banking products. And so with that, we're looking at city national manufacturing, wealth management, distributing. And so bringing us all together, you know, we're seeing, you know, strong momentum, and it's reflected in our numbers in Q3, but really seeing really good, you know, trajectory of what will drive growth going forward. And kind of close on my opening remark is, you know, what are those tailwinds in the U.S. with city national part of that is really one of those tailwinds where we see opportunity going forward.

Well, I keep thinking that's a great place to end it because we're out of time.

Still the flashing lights.

Please join me in thanking Catherine for her presentation. Thank you.