Bank of Montreal to bring bankers back to offices on Monday By

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A sign for the Bank of Montreal in Toronto, Ontario, Canada December 13, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio

TORONTO (Reuters) -Bank of Montreal will begin bringing employees in its investment and corporate banking unit back to offices on Monday, a spokesperson confirmed to Reuters late on Wednesday.

It is the first major Canadian lender to set a concrete return-to-office date following the lifting of COVID restrictions in Ontario, the country’s most populous province and home to its five biggest banks.

The timetable for a return to bank premises will differ by groups, teams and geographies, the spokesperson for Canada’s fourth-biggest bank said by email.

Bloomberg reported the plans on Wednesday.

Most of Canada’s major banks put their return-to-office plans on hold late last year following the resurgence of the Omicron variant.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest lender, will also vary its return-to-office plans by business and region, and will continue to allow rapid testing as an alternative to vaccinations in certain circumstances, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Toronto-Dominion Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia said they have not updated their plans.

Financial firms in the United States are also starting to bring employees back to offices, after their plans too were scuppered by the variant.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE:), Bank of America (NYSE:) and Jeffries have begun bringing employees back; Morgan Stanley (NYSE:), JPMorgan (NYSE:) and Citigroup (NYSE:) expect to do so this month; and American Express (NYSE:) and Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:) plan to bring staff back in March.