Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada is the sort of full-service bank people use for chequing accounts, mortgages, investments, credit cards, and business banking. By our assessment, its main strength is breadth: it can cover a household, a small business, and a more invested customer under one roof, with the scale and brand recognition that come from being one of Canada's biggest banks. The trade-off is the familiar one for a giant bank: products are many, but the fine print is still bank fine print, and the service is built more for consistency than for special pleading. In practice it feels like a standard Canadian bank with a broad branch-and-digital mix, so it suits people who want everything in one place and do not mind a fairly conventional setup. Royal Bank of Canada sits near the top of the country's banking world, and that shape explains both its reach and its sameness.