On June 23 that year, a man named John Richardson and eight other merchants got together in a rented house. There, they signed the Articles of Association to create a bank named Montréal Bank. Montréal Bank would initially conduct business in that house, then move to a permanent office on Rue Saint-Paul a year later.
Three years after moving office, Montréal Bank would get its name changed to Bank of Montréal. Decades after the name change, Bank of Montréal would become one of the Big Five, which simply means the big five banks of Canada.
With a market capitalization amounting to $105 billion as of June 2025, BMO has since put up over 800 branches in Canada. It provides various financial services for seven million people.
Branches in the US
Since 1990, BMO has served customers in the greater Chicago area, then branching out to the other United States via its subsidiary BMO Harris Bank, under the BMO Financial Group.
In 1994, BMO itself became the first Canadian bank to get listed on the NYSE.