Bank Act

Marginal note:Place of records

• 239 (1) The records described in section 238 shall be kept at the head office of the bank or at such other place in Canada as the directors think fit.

• Marginal note:Notice of place of records

  (2) Where any of the records described in section 238 are not kept at the head office of a bank, the bank shall notify the Superintendent of the place where the records are kept.

• Marginal note:Exception

  (3) Subsection (1) does not apply in respect of records of a branch of the bank outside Canada or in respect of customers of such a branch.

• Marginal note:Exception

  (3.1) Subject to subsection 245(1.1), subsection (1) does not apply to a bank that is a subsidiary of a foreign bank incorporated or formed otherwise in a country or territory other than Canada in which a trade agreement listed in Schedule IV is applicable or of a regulated foreign entity.

• Marginal note:Inspection

  (4) The records described in section 238, other than those described in paragraph 238(2)(c), shall at all reasonable times be open to inspection by the directors.

• Marginal note:Access to bank records

  (5) Shareholders, members and creditors of a bank and their personal representatives may examine the records referred to in subsection 238(1) during the usual business hours of the bank and may take extracts from them free of charge or have copies of them made on payment of a reasonable fee. If the bank is a distributing bank, any other person may on payment of a reasonable fee examine those records during the usual business hours of the bank and take extracts from them or have copies of them made.

• Marginal note:Electronic access

  (5.1) A bank may make the information contained in records referred to in subsection 238(1) available to persons by any system of mechanical or electronic data processing or any other information storage device that is capable of reproducing the records in intelligible written form within a reasonable time.

• Marginal note:Copies of by-laws

  (6) Every shareholder and every member of a bank is entitled, on request made not more frequently than once in each calendar year, to receive, free of charge, one copy of the by-laws of the bank.