TD Canada Trust, known in the US as TD Bank, continues to expand southward to expand its market share in the territory of its southern neighbor, capitalizing on its strong market position as the second largest Canadian bank, and as of 2011, the only Big Five Canadian bank with a perfect credit rating. With operations targeting Massachusetts, Florida and Washington DC, American Banks currently posting significant losses may have something to worry about with a lean competitor on the horizon.
Many of the Canadian giant’s recent expansions have been due to acquisitions, which in recent years have included Banknorth, Commerce Bancorp, Riverside National Bank, South Financial Group, and Chrysler Financial, and the current climate represents a good moment for the bank to move in to acquire assets and businesses that are not operating as strongly as before the banking crisis.
With nearly as many branches in the United States as in Canada, TD Bank is on the verge of becoming a more important US entity than a Canadian one, and with the upcoming expansions it seems like only a matter of time before the “Canadian” bank’s native operations are eclipsed by its “foreign” market presence. Such continuous expansion likely represents a good opportunity for investment, not just for the bank, but of course for investors as well, as the bank is in a good position to expand its business operations during a time when the expansions can be more readily found at bargain prices.
TD Bank’s presence was already rather significant among certain sectors, having acquired brokerage firms such as Waterhouse and Ameritrade, rebranding those operations after acquisition. It seems a rather rare event for a Canadian bank to be expanding quite significantly into the US market, but of course any well-run operation will do so.
Ironically, this comes at a time certain American banks, such as M&T Bank, are expanding into Canada, which likely signifies the TD acquisitions as a good strategic move toward diversification in the face of what will become at least somewhat increased competition. M&T Bank in particular is in a fairly strong financial position at a time when not all American banks can say the same, as it managed to weather the financial crisis without significant damage. M&T had been expanding its Canadian operations for a while anyway, but of course economic crises represent a unique opportunity to capitalize on such events.
Banking consolidation does, of course, have many people worried, as the increasing influence of major banking institutions has been blamed for a variety of economic and political roadblocks, some rather severe. The dangers of “too big to fail” have only been exacerbated with increasing acquisitions since the American bailouts, as they were incentivized to do so on the basis of increasing their size and thus becoming increasingly too big to fail. If they get bailed out because they’re too big, they’ll only continue to get as big as they possibly can.

What this means for the TD Bank expansion is likely nothing, as the company does not seem to have the same sort of roadblocks, as it claims a good relationship with the FDIC, which will allow this expansion to continue. But it does raise the question of how far acquisitions can go before becoming a significant economic problem for the future.
Author Resource:-
A description of some of the services available can be found at TD Canada Trust Easy Web, which includes descriptions of security information and available services. Also mentioned was a semi-competitor, M&T Bank Online.
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