Dan Werner: I think it was a decent quarter for the Canadian banks. Not sterling, obviously, because of the higher gross impaired loans and higher provisions for credit losses related to energy, which is finally starting to hit some of the asset qualities of these banks. That has also bled over to the consumer area, especially in those oil patch regions where credit cards and auto loans are starting to see some stress, which is a negative for the banks.
Some of the other things that we saw this quarter were that fee revenue areas, like wealth management and capital markets, are still struggling; wealth management because the markets were kind of malaise, and for the capital markets, that's where most of the energy lending occurred, so the higher provisions impacted those segments.
RBC had a decent quarter. Much like another bank that we're going to talk about, it benefited from an acquisition, a U.S. acquisition, of City National in California. So we saw much better personal and commercial revenue and net income from that area. But like all the other banks, capital markets struggled with higher provisions for losses to energy, and wealth management was actually better because of City National and the assets they brought along with that acquisition.
BMO had a decent quarter, with varying pulls and pushes that occurred on the income statement. On the positive, they, like Royal Bank, benefited from a U.S. acquisition for transportation finance that they acquired from General Electric. It saw much better U.S. segment growth and net income as a result of that. On the negative, though, they, like all the other banks, had stress with their energy portfolio. Secondly, they incurred some restructuring charges related to more technology and branch rationalization as people moved towards digital use of their banks.
TD had a decent quarter. I think TD benefited from its much lower exposure to energy, compared to the other banks. Personal and commercial in Canada and the U.S. remained very solid, much like the other Canadian banks during the quarter. That really kind of carried the day for all of them. Generally, we're pleased with TD's quarter. Not much to criticize there.
CIBC saw a pretty significant impact on its gross impaired loans and provisions for losses on energy. They too carried through by Canadian personal and commercial banking, which remained very solid for them. And some of the fee management areas like, wealth management, struggled and they are in the process of the sale of American Century, which will be reflected next quarter.
Scotia, again, one of the higher exposures to energy, but they, like the other banks, benefited from strong personal and commercial in Canada, as well as the strong growth that they continued to see from the international business that's done very well for them and continues to lend stability to the overall earnings. Overall, I think we're still kind of cautious, not only with Scotia, but with all the banks on their energy lending. We're keeping an eye on that.
National preannounced a significant provision for losses, which wiped out about half their normal net income for the quarter. They provisioned $250 million for bad energy loans. They are very intensive in capital markets, and they struggled with some of the business they had there. Overall, a tough quarter for them. I think they are hopeful that they have addressed all of the energy issues, but I'm not so sure about that. We'll see what they do next quarter.
I think we're still going to see some stress from some of these energy portfolios. They are coming off very low impaired levels. I still think we're going to still see higher provisions in that area. The Canadian personal and commercial banking businesses will probably still be very solid, but we're probably going to see lower growth, given the slowness in the overall economy. For the banks that have U.S. presence, like TD and BMO, I think they are going to do generally better than the rest of the banks. And capital markets activities will probably be a little bit better as the market has done better, but not like what we saw a year ago.
