CIBC announced that it signed a long-term agreement to become the exclusive issuer of Costco Mastercards in Canada and that it would also acquire the existing Canadian Costco credit card portfolio, with over $3 billion in outstanding balances.

The CIBC Costco Mastercard® launched in early March 2022, at which time existing eligible Costco Mastercard co-branded credit card accounts were converted to CIBC and CIBC began issuing new cards to the converted portfolio, as well as taking new applications both online and in Costco Canada warehouses.

Torys acted as counsel to CIBC with a team that included Krista Hill and Daniel Masliyah (M&A), Cameron Koziskie and Ebad Rahman (co-brand credit card arrangements and payment network arrangements), Peter Aziz, Trish McMahon and Matthew Angelus (financial services), Eli Monas (bank regulatory), Ed Fan (IP), Teresa Reguly (privacy), John Tobin, Richard Johnson and Tamara Jewett (tax) and Omar Wakil (competition).