TD Canada Trust had its final facelift this weekend as the last integration of Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canada Trust Co. retail branches in Canada went off without a major hitch.
"The biggest problem to date has been they're a little behind in the changing of signs," spokesman Jeff Keay said yesterday of the integration in Ontario east of Thunder Bay. By late yesterday afternoon, 437 branches of the 746 had new signs with the "TD Canada Trust" moniker. By today, the rest are expected to have a temporary or permanent sign in place, Mr. Keay said.
"If that's the worst we get, we're a happy company."
This was the largest logistical exercise connected with TD's $7.8-billion acquisition of Canada Trust 18 months ago. The Ontario region east of Thunder Bay was the fourth and final wave, after starting the changeover in the Atlantic region in March. Integrated over the weekend were 272 of Canada Trust's 435 branches and about 65 per cent of the company's four million customers.
During the changeover, none of the Ontario Canada Trust branches were open and customers weren't able to use Internet banking, but they could perform transactions using the telephone as well as withdraw money from automated tellers.
The three previous regional changes, during which the two financial institutions integrated their branch networks and customer bases, were practice for this weekend's.
"We weren't anticipating any problems because we've gone through it three times, when we worked out all the bugs," Mr. Keay said.
"Bankers are very cautious people."
The biggest problem will start today, as Canada Trust customers try to get used to a new system. "So far, traffic to our call centres has been higher than normal, but within our projections," Mr. Keay said.
As a result of the expected increase in calls, it may take customers a little longer to get a live person on the phone, he said.
To combat the problem, there are an extra 700 people staffing the centres, and the bank will monitor which divisions are getting the most calls and move staff around accordingly. However, that's not going to prevent customers from being on hold a little longer than usual at the beginning of this week, he said.