OSC tribunal approves $8M settlement over RBC accounting practices

Editor’s Note: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly stated the penalties against RBC were $10 million.

The Ontario Securities Commission has approved an $8-million settlement with Royal Bank of Canada over issues with its tracking of costs related to internal software development.

The settlement, approved by the OSC’s Capital Markets Tribunal on Friday, covers deals the bank reached with the commission as well as with Quebec’s Autorité des marchés financiers and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The payments, stemming from its deficient accounting controls between 2008 and 2020, included $4 million to the SEC, $2 million to the OSC and $2 million to the AMF.

The regulators say RBC was not properly monitoring how much of its software development spending should be capitalized, and therefore considered assets, and what should be counted as expenses.

It says the bank, which increased its capitalized spending on software development from $658 million in 2011 to $1.3 billion in 2022, has taken corrective action on the deficiencies and there was no evidence of dishonest conduct.

RBC says in a statement that it was pleased to have resolved the matter, which it “thoroughly investigated and took action to remediate.”