The Daily Chase: Strong numbers from RBC, CIBC cap earnings from big banks

Here are five things you need to know this morning.

RBC and CIBC cap bank earnings with strong beats: Royal Bank and CIBC rounded out earnings from the big banks this morning, and the numbers from both lenders surprised to the upside. At RBC, adjusted profit came in at $2.92 a share, better than the $2.76 expected, mostly on strength in its capital markets unit, where profit hit an all-time high. The bank also fared better than expected on loan-loss provisions, coming in at $920 million, which was slightly lower than the $929 million forecast. CIBC numbers were equally impressive, with $1.75 per-share profit beating $1.65 expectations, and $514 million in provisions for credit losses. That’s less than the $567 million forecast

BMO outage: Bank of Montreal is experiencing an outage on its network this morning. A surge of clients in the U.S. and Canada reported problems logging into accounts on Thursday, and the bank is telling its customers via social media channels it is aware of a problem and is investigating. In a statement to CTV News and BNN Bloomberg, the bank said it is “experiencing a service disruption due to a false fire alarm that occurred overnight at one of our data centres.”

WestJet issues June 1 lockout notice with Encore pilots: WestJet has issued an advance lockout notice to the union that represents pilots at its Encore airline, noting that a work stoppage could happen as soon as this weekend. The airline took the step after the pilots failed to ratify a deal the two sides had struck earlier this month. The deadline for the lockout is 6 p.m. mountain time this coming Saturday. The Air Line Pilots Association, for its part, says after two weeks of bargaining since the rejected deal, the two sides remain far apart.