Website: bmo.com
Head office address (Canada): First Canadian Place, 100 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5X 1A1
Year established: 1817
Ownership structure: publicly traded Canadian bank (TSX: BMO, NYSE: BMO); Schedule I bank under the Bank Act (Canada)
Target market/client profile: individuals, businesses, plan sponsors, and institutional investors
Number of professional staff: more than 53,000 employees
Canadian office locations: branches across every Canadian province and territory except Nunavut; operational head office in Toronto
Bank of Montreal (BMO) is a publicly traded Canadian bank with $1.5 trillion in total assets as at October 31, 2025. It serves 13 million clients throughout Canada, the US, and select global markets through four business groups. Its key operating arms include:
Its insurance and asset management divisions offer pension de-risking, group annuities, and workplace savings solutions to plan sponsors and institutional investors.
In 1817, Lower Canada had no reliable currency and merchants struggled to settle trade debts across the Atlantic. Nine Montreal merchants pooled their resources to create the Montreal Bank, which opened on November 3 on St. Paul Street.
The bank received its federal charter in 1822 and formally took the name Bank of Montreal. For the next century, it served as the official banker to the federal government and Canada’s de facto central bank.
In 1885, the bank financed the Canadian Pacific Railway, then the only rail line to span the country from east to west. The bank also absorbed the Merchants Bank of Canada in 1921 and the Montreal-based Molson Bank in 1925.
Those two deals added more than 500 branches to its network throughout Canada. The Bank of Canada took over central banking duties in 1934, and BMO shifted its attention fully toward commercial growth.
Bank of Montreal became the first Canadian bank to own a US banking subsidiary when it acquired Chicago-based Harris Bancorp in 1984. Banking deregulation three years later opened the door to investment firms; BMO then acquired Nesbitt Thomson, a Montreal-founded brokerage, in 1987.
Nesbitt Thomson merged with Toronto-based Burns Fry in 1994 to form BMO Nesbitt Burns, the bank’s combined capital markets and wealth arm. In 2009, Bank of Montreal paid around $330 million for AIG’s Canadian life insurance business and rebranded it as BMO Life Assurance Company.
In 2023, BMO acquired Bank of the West from French bank BNP Paribas for US$16.3 billion, the largest acquisition in Canadian banking history. In 2025, the bank bought Burgundy Asset Management and launched the BMO-LINK Workplace Savings Platform with LINK Investment Management.
A 2025 Benefits and Pensions Monitor (BPM) feature explored how BMO GAM partners with Indigenous nations to build multi-generational wealth through institutional investment. That work builds on the bank’s decision in 1992 to create Canada’s first dedicated Indigenous Banking unit.
Beyond its investment work, Bank of Montreal’s 2026 retirement survey found that 74 percent of Canadians say inflation has raised their retirement savings concerns. That research shows the bank’s broader push to track retirement trends for plan sponsors and advisors across Canada.
Bank of Montreal serves plan sponsors, institutional investors, and benefits advisors through its insurance, asset management, and private wealth arms:
Bank of Montreal also provides personal banking and commercial lending. Those services support its broader base of individual and business clients.
Darryl White became CEO of BMO Financial Group in 2017 after 30 years at the bank. He previously served as CEO of BMO Capital Markets in 2014 and COO in 2016. White holds an HBA and honorary Doctor of Laws from Ivey Business School at Western University and completed Harvard Business School’s AMP.
White leads Bank of Montreal’s executive committee, which includes:
George A. Cope, C.M., has served as chair of BMO’s board of directors since 2020. The board oversees strategy, risk, and executive performance across all of the company’s operations.
Other Bank of Montreal directors include:
The board operates through standing committees that cover audit, risk, and governance functions. BMO files its governance disclosures annually with Canadian and US securities regulators through its management proxy circular.
Bank of Montreal’s pension and retirement clients include corporations with defined benefit plans, endowments, foundations, and high-net-worth individuals. BMO Private Wealth targets business owners and incorporated professionals through BMO Nesbitt Burns’ advisor network and digital platforms.
As the asset management arm of Bank of Montreal, BMO GAM serves Canadian institutional clients across fixed income, equities, and alternative investments. Plan sponsors and portfolio managers can find BMO GAM listed in our directories:
Bank of Montreal has earned recognition across banking, sustainability, and professional leadership in recent years.
Bank of Montreal donated $124 million to more than 1,000 nonprofits and charities in Canada in 2025. Its annual Employee Giving campaign also raised an additional $36 million from staff that year.
The bank holds the designation of Official Bank of the Canadian Defence Community. BMO also says it has worked with Indigenous communities in the country for more than 30 years to support economic empowerment.
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