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The story
Merger of Imperial and Commerce
The origins of the Imperial–Commerce merger lay in the actions of Barclays Bank. Barclays began operating in Canada in 1929, but in 1956 sold its Canadian operations to the Imperial Bank. Barclays took payment partly in the form of Imperial stock. In 1960, without informing Imperial's board, Barclays began buying additional Imperial stock on the open market. L. Stuart Mackersy, chairman of Imperial, believed Barclays was making a play to take over Imperial. Mackersy thought that a takeover of a small bank such as Imperial was inevitable, but preferred to work with domestic rather than British concerns. In October 1960, Mackersy approached Neil J. McKinnon, the president and chairman of the Commerce, with a proposal to merge the two banks. Their first meeting took place secretively at McKinnon's house at 116 Dunvegan Road in Forest Hill, making the house the birthplace of the CIBC. According to Mackersy, within ten minutes he and McKinnon reached an agreement to merge their banks.
Operations of CIBC
On 1 June 1961, the Canadian Bank of Commerce and the Imperial Bank of Canada merged to form the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce with over 1,200 branches across Canada. The new bank possessed the greatest resources and the most branches of any bank in the country.
In 1964, the bank operated a floating branch using the passenger vessel MV Jean Brilliant along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, billed as the only floating branch in Canada for 5000 customers. In 1967, both Canada and CIBC celebrated their centenaries and CIBC was the only chartered bank to have a branch on-site at Expo 67. Also at this time computerization began to change banking services and the Yonge and Bloor branch in Toronto was the first Canadian bank branch to update customer bank books via computer. This also marked the introduction of inter-branch banking. Before the decade was out, CIBC had introduced the first 24-hour cash dispenser, which would eventually become the ATM.
Following the merger, the new bank commissioned a new head office. While planning to retain Commerce Court North, the bank hired architect I. M. Pei to design a three-building complex. The result was Commerce Court consisting of a landscaped courtyard complementing the existing building and included the newly built 786 ft (240 m) Commerce Court West. When completed in 1973, the 57-storey building was the tallest in Canada, and the largest stainless-steel-clad building in the world.
Changes to federal and provincial regulations ending the separation of banks, investment dealers, trust companies and insurance companies came in 1987. CIBC quickly took advantage of this and became the first Canadian bank to operate an investment dealer, CIBC Securities, offering services to the public.
In 1988, CIBC acquired a majority interest in Wood Gundy which brought a well-respected name and reputation in underwriting. Shortly thereafter, the corporation merged Wood Gundy and CIBC Securities under the name CIBC Wood Gundy which became CIBC Oppenheimer in 1997 and later, CIBC World Markets.
In 1992, CIBC introduced automated telephone banking; in 1995 the bank launched its website, and shortly thereafter began offering banking services online. In 1996, CIBC formed HP Intria Items, alongside Hewlett-Packard and Fiserv Canada. In 2005, CIBC acquired the shares of the company from Fiserv Canada, resulting in Intria Items becoming a unit of CIBC. In 1998, CIBC joined with Loblaws to create President's Choice Financial which it launched in 28 Ottawa area stores.
CIBC agreed to merge with the Toronto-Dominion Bank in 1998. However the Government of Canada, at the recommendation of the minister of finance, Paul Martin, blocked the merger – as well as another proposed by the Bank of Montreal with the Royal Bank of Canada – as not in the best interest of Canadians.
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21st century
In 2000, CIBC signed an agreement with the New York-based Aplettix Inc., a firm specializing in secure transaction systems in the banking sector; although the partnership was later abandoned for alternatives such as VeriSign.
The early 2000s saw the bank divest from its real estate and investments outside of its business strategy. In 2000, CIBC sold its 10 per cent stake to Rogers Media. CIBC was a minority shareholder in Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays, with partner Labatt's Breweries from their inception in 1977. The CIBC Leadership Centre in King City, was sold to Benchmark Hospitality in 2001. In 2002, CIBC disbanded Amicus FSB, and sold its assets to E*Trade Bank. Amicus FSB was formed in 1999 in the United States with Winn Dixie and Safeway Inc. under the Marketplace Bank and Safeway Select Bank brands. In the same year, CIBC signed a 10-year agreement with TSYS of Columbus, Georgia to outsource credit card processing operations.
In 2004, the bank sold Juniper Financial Corporation to Barclays Bank. Juniper Financial was previously acquired by CIBC in 2001. The bank sold EDULINX Canada Corporation to Nelnet Canada Inc., the Canadian unit of Nelnet, Inc., in late 2004. Li Ka Shing was the largest foreign shareholder in the bank for over two decades, but in early 2005 he sold his portion (est. CA$1.2 billion) to establish a Canadian charity, the Li Ka Shing Foundation. CIBC was Li's choice for financing many of his Canadian ventures, like Husky Energy. Li had reportedly backed personal and commercial banking head Holger Kluge to succeed Al Flood as CEO of CIBC in 1999.
CIBC sold its corporate and purchasing credit card business to U.S. Bank Canada in October 2006 which joined it with business charge cards it previously acquired from Royal Bank of Canada. In the same year, CIBC's stock ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange changed from BCM to CM to bring it in line with the ticker symbol on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
In December 2006, CIBC acquired majority control of its publicly held joint venture FirstCaribbean International Bank for just over US$1 billion, (Bds$2 billion), when it purchased the 43.7% stake owned by Barclays Bank. CIBC rebranded the division CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank in 2011.
On February 12, 2009, the Trinidad and Tobago Express reported that CIBC was pursuing discussions to buy CL Financial's stake in the Republic Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. As part of a "bail out" agreement of CL Financial by the government of Trinidad and Tobago during the 2008 financial crisis, the corporation was required to sell Republic and other assets. As of February 2011, CL Financial had yet to agree to a sale.
In February, 2010 CIBC became the first chartered bank in Canada to launch a mobile banking iPhone App. It surpassed 100,000 downloads in just over one month following launch, with over 1 million client logins to CIBC Mobile Banking since its introduction. Four months later, the bank announced it signed a deal to buy a CA$2.1-billion credit card portfolio from Citigroup's Citibank Canada MasterCard business. Finally in October of that year, CIBC announced that it would be the first bank in Canada to introduce the internationally used Visa-branded debit card.
In April 2013, CIBC reached an agreement with Invesco to acquire Atlantic Trust, the company's wealth management unit for US$210 million.
CIBC announced in June 2016 that it would acquire the Chicago-based commercial bank PrivateBancorp for US$3.8 billion. The sale completed in June 2017 and in August PrivateBank announced it would rebrand itself as CIBC Bank USA.
In April 2017, CIBC, announced it would move its headquarters to the Bay Park Centre under development by Hines Interests Limited Partnership and Ivanhoé Cambridge. Under the terms of its lease, the complex became CIBC Square. On November 1, 2021, CIBC Square became the bank's principal headquarters.
In November 2018, CBC reported that CIBC was among the top brands used in phishing attacks, with the bank seeing a surge in fake mail attempts that prior quarter by 600%. In March 2025, CIBC became the first major Canadian bank to sign the Canadian government's voluntary code of conduct for generative artificial intelligence. The year prior, CIBC had introduced a number of generative AI pilot programs.
In 2025, CIBC signaled a strategic shift under incoming CEO Harry Culham, with plans to expand its presence in high-margin areas such as wealth management and U.S. commercial banking.
In Q3 2025, CIBC reported adjusted net income of C$2.1 billion.
From Wikipedia’s article on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7