Banking on America [first edition]

Since its beginnings in 1855, when its predecessor, The Bank of Toronto, was founded by a group of flour millers and grain dealers, TD Bank has been one of the most proactive financial institutions on the planet. Today, it is an international colossus. The bank's expansion into the U.S. has been arguably the most successful of its ventures, with the familiar stylized TD logo and its green background lighting up buildings in Manhattan and other major American cities. Today, TD Ameritrade does more daily trades than any discount brokerage in the world., and the bank itself now has 1,300 branches in the States--more than it has in Canada--even as other institutions continue to close in the face of the financial crisis.Howard Green, Canada's best-known interviewer of business notables, brings this Canadian bank to life through the people who have built it into the money-spinning machine that now spews out more than $16 million a day in profit. From the days of former executive Keith Gray, filling inkwells and packing a revolver in rural Ontario branches in the 1950s, to today's CEO, Ed Clark, overseeing more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars in assets, 85,000 employees and 22 million customers, this iconic Canadian company has outshone its American counterparts and is now taking over their world.