In the normal course of business, we engage in a variety of financial transactions with structured entities to support our financing and investing needs as well as those of our clients. A structured entity is an entity in which voting or similar rights are not the dominant factor in deciding control. Structured entities are generally created to achieve a narrow and well defined objective with restrictions around their ongoing activities. We consolidate a structured entity when we control the entity in accordance with our accounting policy as described in Note 2. In other cases, we may sponsor or have an interest in such an entity but may not consolidate it.

We consolidate the following structured entities, whose assets and liabilities are recorded on our Consolidated Balance Sheets. Third-party investors in these structured entities generally have recourse only to the assets of the related entity and do not have recourse to our general assets unless we breach our contractual obligations to those entities. In the ordinary course of business, the assets of each consolidated structured entity can generally only be used to settle the obligations of that entity.

We generally do not maintain ownership in the multi-seller conduits that we administer and generally do not have rights to, or control of, their assets. However, we issue asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) through a multi-seller conduit that does not have an expected loss investor with substantive power to direct the significant operating activities of the conduit. This conduit is consolidated because we have exposure to variability of returns from performance in the multi-seller arrangements through providing transaction-specific and program-wide liquidity, credit and loan facilities to the conduit and have decision-making power over the relevant activities. As of October 31, 2024, $1,718 million of financial assets held by the conduit were included in Loans (October 31, 2023 – $1,316 million) and $1,600 million of ABCP issued by the conduit was included in Deposits (October 31, 2023 – $1,194 million) on our Consolidated Balance Sheets.

We securitize a portion of our credit card receivables through a structured entity on a revolving basis. The entity purchases interests in a pool of credit card receivables and issues senior and subordinated term notes collateralized by that co-ownership interest in the underlying pool of credit card receivables. Investors who purchase the term notes have recourse only to that co-ownership interest in the underlying pool of credit card receivables.

We continue to service the credit card receivables and perform an administrative role for the entity. We also retain risk in the underlying pool of credit card receivables through our retained interest in the transferred assets, the cash reserve balance we fund from time to time, and also through certain subordinated notes which we retain. Additionally, we may own some senior notes as investments or for market-making activities and we act as counterparty to interest rate and cross currency swap agreements which hedge the entity’s interest rate and currency risk exposure.

We consolidate the structured entity because we have decision-making power over the timing and size of future issuances and other relevant activities which were predetermined by us at inception. We also obtain significant funding benefits and are exposed to variability from the performance of the underlying credit card receivables through our retained interest. As at October 31, 2024, $6 billion of notes issued by our credit card securitization vehicle were included in Deposits on our Consolidated Balance Sheets (October 31, 2023 – $7 billion).

 

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We periodically transfer mortgages to RBC Covered Bond Guarantor Limited Partnership (the Guarantor LP) to support funding activities and asset coverage requirements under our covered bonds program. The Guarantor LP was created to guarantee interest and principal payments under the covered bond program. The covered bonds guaranteed by the Guarantor LP are direct, unsecured and unconditional obligations of RBC; therefore, investors have a claim against the Bank which will continue if the covered bonds are not paid by the Bank and the mortgage assets in the Guarantor LP are insufficient to satisfy the obligations owing on the covered bonds. We act as general partner, limited partner, swap counterparty, lender and liquidity provider to the Guarantor LP, servicer for the underlying mortgages as well as the registered issuer of the covered bonds.

We consolidate the Guarantor LP as we have the decision-making power over the relevant activities through our role as general partner and are exposed to variability from the performance of the underlying mortgages. As at October 31, 2024, the total amount of mortgages transferred and outstanding was $107 billion (October 31, 2023 – $100 billion) and $58 billion of covered bonds were recorded as Deposits on our Consolidated Balance Sheets (October 31, 2023 – $50 billion).

We sell taxable and tax-exempt municipal bonds into Tender Option Bond (TOB) structures, which consist of a bond that is credit enhanced by us and purchased by a TOB trust. The TOB trust finances the purchase from us by issuing floating-rate certificates to short-term investors and a residual certificate that is purchased by us. We are the remarketing agent for the floating-rate certificates and provide a liquidity facility to the short-term investors which requires us to purchase any certificates tendered but not successfully remarketed. We credit enhance the bond purchased by the TOB trust with a letter of credit under which we are required to extend funding if there are any losses on the underlying bonds. We earn interest on the residual certificate and receive market-based fees for acting as remarketing agent and providing the liquidity facility and letter of credit.

We consolidate the TOB trust when we are the holder of the residual certificate as we have decision-making power over the relevant activities, including the selection of the underlying municipal bonds and the ability to terminate the structure, and are exposed to variability from the performance of the underlying municipal bonds. As at October 31, 2024, $ illion of municipal bonds were included in Securities related to consolidated TOB structures (October 31, 2023 – $5 billion) and a corresponding $5 illion of floating-rate certificates were included in Deposits on our Consolidated Balance Sheets (October 31, 2023 – $5 billion).

We establish structured entities to acquire loans for the purposes of issuing term collateralized loan obligation (CLO) transactions and act as collateral manager. During the warehouse phase, we provide subordinated financing and, for certain term CLO transactions, act as the arranger and placement agent, and may provide senior warehouse financing. Proceeds from the sale of the term CLO are used to repay our warehouse financing. During the term CLO phase, we continue to provide subordinated financing, which serves as the first loss tranche that absorbs losses prior to the senior tranches, and may also directly invest in the other tranches.

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We are sponsors and investment managers of mutual and pooled funds, which give us the ability to direct the investment decisions of the funds. We consolidate those mutual and pooled funds in which our interests, which include direct investment in seed capital plus management or performance fees, indicate that we are acting as a principal. As at October 31, 2024, $799 million of Trading securities held in the consolidated funds (October 31, 2023 – $400 million) and $377 million of Other liabilities representing the fund units held by third parties (October 31, 2023 – $331 million) were recorded on our Consolidated Balance Sheets.

We have interests in certain structured entities that we do not consolidate but have recorded assets and liabilities on our Consolidated Balance Sheets related to our transactions and involvement with these entities.

 

 

Below is a description of our involvement with each significant class of unconsolidated structured entity.

We administer multi-seller ABCP conduit programs. Multi-seller conduits primarily purchase financial assets from clients and finance those purchases by issuing ABCP.

In certain multi-seller conduit arrangements, we do not maintain any ownership of the multi-seller conduits that we administer and have no rights to, or control of, its assets. As the administrative agent, we earn a residual fee for providing services such as coordinating funding activities, transaction structuring, documentation, execution and monitoring. The ABCP issued by each multi-seller conduit is in the conduit’s own name with recourse to the financial assets owned by the multi-seller conduit, and is non-recourse to us except through our participation in liquidity and/or credit enhancement facilities.

We provide transaction-specific and program-wide liquidity facilities to the multi-seller conduits. In addition, we provide program-wide credit enhancement to the multi-seller conduits which obligate us to purchase assets or advance funds in the event the multi-seller conduit does not otherwise have funds from other sources, such as from the liquidity facilities, to settle maturing ABCP. In some cases, we or another third party may provide transaction-specific credit enhancement which can take various forms. We receive market-based fees for providing these liquidity and credit facilities.

For certain transactions, we act as counterparty to various hedging contracts to facilitate our clients’ securitization of fixed rate and/or foreign currency denominated assets through the conduits. These may take the form of forward contracts, interest rate swaps or cross currency swaps. These derivatives expose us to foreign exchange and interest rate risks that are centrally managed by our foreign exchange trading and swap desks, respectively, and credit on the underlying assets that is mitigated by the credit enhancement described below.

 

An unrelated third party (expected loss investor) absorbs losses, up to a maximum contractual amount, that may occur in the future on the assets in the multi-seller conduits before the multi-seller conduits’ debt holders and us. In return for assuming this multi-seller conduit first-loss position, each multi-seller conduit pays the expected loss investor a return commensurate with its risk position. The expected loss investor has substantive power to direct the majority of the activities which significantly impact the conduit’s economic performance, including initial selection and approval of the asset purchase commitments and liquidity facilities, approval of renewal and amendment of these transactions and facilities, sale or transfer of assets, ongoing monitoring of asset performance, mitigation of losses, and management of the ABCP liabilities.

We do not consolidate these multi-seller conduits as we do not control the conduits as noted above.

We participate in certain municipal bond TOB structures that we do not consolidate. These structures are similar to those consolidated municipal bond TOB structures described above; however, the residual certificates are held by third parties. We provide liquidity facilities for the benefit of floating-rate certificate holders which may be drawn if certificates are tendered but not able to be remarketed. For a portion of these trusts, we also provide a letter of credit for the underlying bonds held in the trust. We do not have decision-making power over the relevant activities of the structures; therefore, we do not consolidate these structures.

We provide senior warehouse financing to unaffiliated structured entities that are established by third parties to acquire loans for the purposes of issuing a term CLO transaction. Subordinated financing is provided during the warehouse phase by either the collateral manager or third-party investors. Subordinated financing serves as the first loss tranche which absorbs losses prior to ourselves as the senior lender. We act as the arranger and placement agent for the term CLO transaction. Proceeds from the sale of the term CLO are used to repay our senior warehouse financing, at which point we have no further involvement with the transaction. We do not consolidate these CLO structures as we do not have decision-making power over the relevant activities of the entity, which include the initial selection and subsequent management of the underlying debt portfolio.

We provide senior financing to unaffiliated structured entities that are established by third parties to acquire loans. Subordinated financing is provided by either the collateral manager or third-party investors. Subordinated financing serves as the first loss tranche which absorbs losses prior to ourselves as the senior lender. These facilities tend to be longer in term than the CLO warehouse facilities and benefit from credit enhancement generally designed to cover a multiple of historical losses. We do not consolidate these structures as we do not have decision-making power over the relevant activities of the entity, which include the initial selection and subsequent management of the underlying debt portfolio.

We enter into fee-based equity derivative transactions with third parties including mutual funds, unit investment trusts and other investment funds. These transactions provide their investors with the desired exposure to reference funds, and we economically hedge our exposure to these derivatives by investing in those reference funds. We also act as custodian for several funds. We do not consolidate those reference funds that are managed by third parties as we do not have power to direct their investing activities.

We provide liquidity facilities to certain third-party investment funds. The funds issue unsecured variable-rate preferred shares and invest in portfolios of tax-exempt municipal bonds. Undrawn liquidity commitments expose us to the liquidity risk of the preferred shares and drawn commitments expose us to the credit risk of the underlying municipal bonds. We do not consolidate these third-party managed funds as we do not have power to direct their investing activities.

We hold interests in securitization vehicles that provide funding to certain third parties on whose behalf the entities were created. The activities of these entities are limited to the purchase and sale of specified financial assets from the sponsor. We, as well as other financial institutions, are obligated to provide funding up to our maximum commitment level and are exposed to credit losses on the underlying assets after various credit enhancements. Enhancements can take various forms, including but not limited to overcollateralization, excess spread, subordinated classes of financial assets, guarantees or letters of credit. The amount of this enhancement varies but is generally designed to cover a multiple of historical losses. We do not consolidate these entities as we do not have decision-making power over the relevant activities, including the entities’ investing and financing activities.

In the normal course of business, we buy and sell passive interests in certain third-party structured entities, including mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and government-sponsored ABS vehicles. Our investments in these entities are managed as part of larger portfolios which are held for trading, liquidity or hedging purposes. We did not create or sponsor these entities and do not have any decision-making power over their ongoing activities. Our maximum exposure to loss is limited to our on-balance sheet investments in these entities, which are not included in the table above. As at October 31, 2024 and 2023, our investments in these entities were included in Trading and Investment securities on our Consolidated Balance Sheets. Refer to Note 3 and Note 4 for further details on our Trading and Investment securities.

We are a sponsor of certain structured entities in which we have interests but do not consolidate. In determining whether we are a sponsor of a structured entity, we consider both qualitative and quantitative factors, including the purpose and nature of the entity, our initial and continuing involvement and whether we hold subordinated interests in the entity. We are considered to be the sponsor of certain credit investment products, tax credit entities, RBC managed mutual funds and a commercial mortgage securitization vehicle. During the year ended October 31, 2024, we did not transfer any commercial mortgages (October 31, 2023 – $nil) to a sponsored securitization vehicle in which we did not have any interests as at the end of the reporting period.

During the years ended October 31, 2024 and 2023, we have not provided any financial or non-financial support to any consolidated or unconsolidated structured entities when we were not contractually obligated to do so. Furthermore, we have no intention to provide such support in the future.