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City National Bank

Lender or loan platform

PPP
Type
Company or group
Role
Lender or loan platform
Programs
PPP
Updated

The profile

The Los Angeles bank owned by Royal Bank of Canada made 25,541 PPP loans averaging $233,598. RBC reported US$4.3 billion of PPP funding to 15,888 clients by October 2020.

  • Type: Bank; PPP lender of record
  • Legal entity: City National Bank, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada
  • Headquarters: Los Angeles, California

City National Bank is the U.S. private and commercial bank of Royal Bank of Canada, based in Los Angeles.12 SBA's loan-level file credits it with 25,541 PPP loans and $6.0 billion in approved dollars, 21st among all lenders by dollars. The loans averaged $233,598, and borrowers reported 19.0 jobs per loan.3 It is a different bank from City National Bank of Florida, a separate PPP lender and the largest seller of loans into the Federal Reserve's Main Street Lending Program.45

The PPP book

The 25,541 loans went to 23,319 borrowers, who reported 485,586 jobs. Modeled loan by loan from SBA's published fee schedule, City National's processing fees come to $189.4 million: $122.8 million on 2020 first-draw loans, $4.1 million on 2021 first-draw loans and $62.5 million on 2021 second-draw loans, 29th of 4,688 originating lenders.3 SBA never published what it paid each lender. Its fee schedule paid 5 percent on 2020 loans up to $350,000, 3 percent up to $2 million and 1 percent above that, so large loans earned less per dollar. City National's modeled fees come to about 3.2 cents per approved dollar, against 4.2 cents for Regions Bank, whose book was about the same size.36

Royal Bank of Canada's management's discussion and analysis for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2020 says of PPP: "Through this program, we have provided loans directly to our clients." As at October 31, 2020, it said, "we have provided $5,776 million (US$4,336 million) of funding to 15,888 clients through these programs."1 RBC reports City National inside its U.S. Wealth Management segment and cited "double digit volume growth in City National" for the year.1

The agents' lawsuits

Two of the twelve agent-fee class actions listed in the May 2020 motion to centralize the litigation named City National. American Video Duplicating, Inc. sued Royal Bank of Canada, City National Bank, Small Business Loan Source, Lendistry (BSD Capital) and Celtic Bank in the Central District of California, No. 2:20-cv-04036. Brunner Accounting Group's suit in the same court, No. 2:20-cv-04235, named City National and RBC along with Silicon Valley Bank, Bluevine, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Square.7 City National was among the lenders that opposed centralization, which the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation denied on August 5, 2020.8

After the program

In September 2024 City National announced a $5 million investment in Lendistry, a community development lender, to fund loans under $100,000 to small businesses in California.2 The bank's own pages describe it as "a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada" that "does business in the state of Florida as CN Bank."2

  • Lendistry — co-defendant in one agent-fee suit; received City National's 2024 investment.
  • Celtic Bank — co-defendant in the same suit.

Sources

  1. Royal Bank of Canada, Management's Discussion and Analysis for fiscal 2020 (Exhibit 2 to Form 40-F, filed Dec. 2, 2020). Original: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1000275/000119312520307790/d28220dex2.htm ↩
  2. City National Bank, "City National Bank Makes $5 Million Impact Investment with Lendistry to Support Undercapitalized Small Businesses in California" (Sept. 26, 2024). Original: https://www.cnb.com/about-us/media/press-releases/2024/lendistry-impact-investment-support-small-businesses.html ↩
  3. City National Bank PPP lender page, computed from SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data. Original: https://data.sba.gov/dataset/ppp-foia SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data (stored capture) ↩
  4. City National Bank of Florida PPP lender page, computed from SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data. Original: https://data.sba.gov/dataset/ppp-foia SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data (stored capture) ↩
  5. Main Street Lending Program: 25 banks by participations sold. ↩
  6. Regions Bank PPP lender page, computed from SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data. Original: https://data.sba.gov/dataset/ppp-foia SBA PPP FOIA loan-level data (stored capture) ↩
  7. Schedule of Actions, In re Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Agent Fees Litigation, MDL No. 2950, Dkt. 1-2 (J.P.M.L., filed May 22, 2020). ↩
  8. Order Denying Transfer, MDL No. 2950, as filed at Dkt. 86-1 (N.D. Fla.). ↩
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