Nixon will be replaced by Dave McKay, group head of personal and commercial banking. McKay will be appointed as president at the annual meeting on February 26, 2014, and president and CEO as of August 1, 2014.

When McKay assumes the role of president, all business segments - personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor and treasury services, and capital markets - will report to him.

Nixon's period at the helm of RBC has coincided with turbulent times in global financial markets, a period through which the Canadian lender has emerged with its reputation enhanced, having avoided some of the worst of the problems to have hit its peers in the US and Europe.

Meanwhile, RBC also announced that Mark Standish, co-group head of capital markets and investor and treasury services, will be leave the firm next year.

"In the interim he will work with RBC’s trading businesses to facilitate transition under the changing regulatory regime in the US," RBC said. 

The announcement came yesterday just as the firm announced its fourth quarter results .