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Federal Privacy Office Acted Like RBC’s PR Arm, Says Integrity Advocate

February 21, 2020

Federal Privacy Office Acted Like RBC’s PR Arm, Says Integrity Advocate

FOI reveals watchdog pushed media to change headline on story about investigation into bank.

Daniel-Therrien-privacy-commissioner.jpg
After various media outlets reported that federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien had told MPs that his office was investigating Facebook and RBC over possible misuse of personal data, the bank pushed back. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick, the Canadian Press.

Canada’s privacy watchdog moved to have news reports about its investigation of RBC and Facebook changed after the bank complained they were “problematic,” documents released under freedom of information legislation show.

The Tyee reported last February that Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien had told MPs that his office was investigating both Facebook and RBC over possible misuse of personal data.

“We received complaints from individuals on whether or not the Royal Bank was violating PIPEDA [Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act] in some way in receiving information in that way,” Therrien told the parliamentary Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

“So that question is the subject of a separate investigation.” 

The Tyee story was followed up by Bloomberg News reporter Doug Alexander, and the service distributed a report headlined “RBC Faces Canadian Privacy Investigation over Facebook Access.

RBC quickly complained to the privacy commissioner’s office about the story.

“The Bloomberg headline is problematic from RBC’s perspective,” said the OPC [Office of the Privacy Commissioner]’s Valerie Lawton, manager of strategic communications, in an email to 11 high-ranking employees, one of a flurry of emails.

Lawton said she had contacted Bloomberg. “Hopefully they will update based on my email,” she wrote.

In an email to Bloomberg, Lawton pressed for a change to the story. “The headline on the story (i.e. RBC faces investigation) is not correct, can you please revise?”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Top 30 Risky Banks – Does it Really Matter?

December 1, 2017

Top 30 Risky Banks – Does it Really Matter?

The Royal Bank of Canada (RPC) has been added to the list of the top 30 banks posing the greatest risk. The top US bank is JP Morgan which is now the only bank required to hold an extra 2.5% of common equity after its US peer Citigroup moved down a tier required to hold 2% extra.

All of this is very nice, but also misleading. The Stress Tests by no means are realistic. It is assuming a single failure and certainly does not even take into consideration a CONTAGION, which nobody understands and there have been no models that will even simulate such events outside of what we have specialized in. The CONTAGION is what created the Great Depression and Herbert Hoover in his memoirs explain how capital acted “like a loose cannon on the deck of the world in a tempest-tossed ers.” Even the CONTAGION that hit in 2010 when Greece petitioned the IMF for a loan and traders immediately looked to see which country would be next, people do not understand that once blood is drawn, capital responds rapidly in the entire spectrum.

Even during the Long-Term Capital Management debacle in 1998, the crisis was in Russia. That sets off a need for liquidity and then all other markets are liquidated trying to raise cash. This is how a CONTAGION unfolds overpowering the fundamental analysis entirely.

 

Economics to this day still does not comprehend the CONTAGION that hit in 1931. It is the CONTAGION that presents the most significant clear and present danger to society as a whole. This is what reshapes countries and politics. We saw in 1933 Hitler, Mao, and FDR all come to power.

Fresh Mainstream Nonsense on Gold Demand

May 16, 2016

Fresh Mainstream Nonsense on Gold Demand 

They Will Never Get It…

We and many others have made a valiant effort over the years to explain what actually moves the gold market (as examples see e.g. our  article “Misconceptions About Gold”, or Robert Blumen’s excellent essay “Misunderstanding Gold Demand”).  Sometimes it is a bit frustrating when we realize it has probably all been for naught.

Gold bars are displayed at a gold jewellery shop in the northern Indian city of ChandigarhGold wants to know what it has done now…     Photo credit: Ajay Verma / Reuters

This was brought home to us again in a recent missive posted at Kitco, which discusses an RBC research note on gold. In a way, it is actually quite funny. The post at Kitco is titled “Gold’s ‘One-legged’ Rally Is Cause of Concern”.

We can assure you it is not of “concern” to us. But we did wonder why the rally was supposedly “one-legged”, so we decided to read on.

Here is what RBC has decided was worth sharing in its new research report:

Despite gold’s impressive run up so far this year, analysts at RBC Capital Markets are concerned by the “one-legged” nature of its rally. In a research report Friday, commodity strategists for the bank noted that gold’s 2016 upswing has been mainly driven by investors, while other sources of demand haven’t followed through.

“In fact, investment demand seems to be the only leg driving this one-legged rally. For us to turn positive, we would need to see this strength replicated elsewhere,” they said. “Investor sentiment has turned amid a flight to safety, but that seems to be the only sentiment that has in fact shifted.”

(emphasis added)

Color us completely flabbergasted. What “others sources of demand” apart from investment demand are supposedly needed to produce a rally in gold and make it two-legged or maybe even three-legged?

1-Gold, dailyJune gold, daily. You poor one-legged thing! – click to enlarge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Canada’s RBC and BMO move to cut prime rates

January 28, 2015

Canada’s RBC and BMO move to cut prime rates

TORONTO (Reuters) – Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest lender, said on Tuesday it would cut its prime lending rate by 15 basis points, becoming the first of Canada’s big banks to trim borrowing costs nearly a week after the central bank stunned markets with a rate cut.

Bank of Montreal BMO.TO, Canada’s fourth-largest bank, quickly followed suit.

The moves by RBC RY.TO and BMO take their prime rates to 2.85 percent from 3 percent, effective Wednesday, the banks said.

Canada’s biggest banks, which also include Toronto-Dominion Bank TD.TO, Bank of Nova Scotia BNS.TO, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CM.TO and National Bank of Canada NA.TO, have come under fire for not immediately cutting their lending rates after the central bank’s rate cut.

By not passing on the full rate cut to borrowers, the banks can protect their net interest margin, which boosts profits.

Typically, once one bank cuts its prime rate, the others follow in order to remain competitive with borrowers.

The Bank of Canada surprised markets with its Jan. 21 decision to cut overnight borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point, to 0.75 percent, to counter the effects of cheaper oil on economic growth and inflation.

 

 

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