Opinion: TD Banks LOL culture reverses two generations of southward expansion [Video]

The most striking thing about U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland’s takedown of Toronto-Dominion Bank TD-T on Thursday wasn’t the criminal conviction, the massive US$3.09-billion in penalties or the freeze on future growth in the U.S. market.

The shocking element of Mr. Garland’s press-conference critique was the TD employee e-mails he read aloud. They spoke to a culture that is going to haunt the bank as incoming chief executive officer Raymond Chun and his team try to win back clients, boost profits and restore the lustre of a bank that’s historically boasted a premium stock market valuation.

Time after time, year after year, TD branch staff, managers and compliance officials joked about laundering money for drug dealers. In three separate e-mails that Mr. Garland read aloud at the press conference, TD employees’ reaction to suspicious activity, such as customers dropping off $1-million in cash and withdrawing the same day in cheques, was to …