By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has placed a moratorium on fee increases in 2018, a senior executive has confirmed.

Kevin Darling, RBC's head of business banking for the northern Caribbean, said: "RBC actually came out this year and put a moratorium on fee increases in 2018. What you will see is a lot of commentary around that cheque cashing fee, so this move to digital eliminates that service altogether if you're not a client of RBC.

"In a year of transformation we felt it was prudent to say we are going to just hold the fees, and let's get through these changes and see what it look like at the end of the day."

Mr Darling added that RBC continues to maintain an aggressive growth strategy. "We still have an aggressive business plan to grow our bank. We did roughly $100 million in commercial loans last year, and that's a pretty good number," he added. "We are still aggressively going after business and trying to help our clients grow."

Mr Darling said banks have had to examine ways to make their operations more efficient.

"Our business is changing significantly," he said. "We have far more non-traditional competitors in our industry. If you look at the banking industry it does three things; store money, lend money and make money.

"As those things get taken up by the competitors there is less market share, and your costs are higher if you're doing less volume.

When you look at those things you have to find ways to do things more efficiently.

"Like any business, if your industry or economy isn't growing you have to look at how you can become more efficient to make it more sustainable".