The Canadian Press

CIBC will look for domestic growth in the near term, rather than looking outside Canada for expansion, the bank’s chief executive said Tuesday.

CEO Gerald McCaughey told a banking conference in Montreal that he believes growth opportunities outside the country are limited for CIBC (TSX:CM) at this point, even in the United States.

“First of all, we believe that if we do deploy outside Canada, it should be in areas where we have a high degree of familiarity and comfort, areas that are regulatory similar to what we have experience with, and similar legal and legislative regimes,” McCaughey said.

“So when you look at that, it basically confines us to Canada.”

But there could be minor growth for CIBC in the Caribbean and possibly in the United States, he said.

“There are certain elements of the Caribbean where we do have operations and a lot of experience, and very limited areas of potential within the United States,” he said, citing real-estate financing.

CIBC was the Canadian bank hit hardest by the credit crunch that erupted in 2008 in the United States, taking billions of dollars in write downs from various credit-related items.

Prior to that, under previous leadership, CIBC enjoyed rapid growth early in the decade but was hit hard when the tech bubble burst and Enron and Worldcom collapsed, costing the bank billions.

Under McCaughey, CIBC has focused its efforts increasingly on its domestic business.

He said Tuesday that any expansion outside Canada likely wouldn’t be large.

“Our opportunities outside of Canada now are limited in terms of anything large, and we have made a number of investments over time to look at various areas of the marketplace, none of which at this point are indicative of larger things to come.”