The phrase in the title comes from American Express traveller’s cheques denominated in Canadian dollars. They would pay the traveller the face value in Canadian dollars if negotiated in Canada, or “In all other countries, negotiable at current buying rate for bankers cheques on Montreal.” See an image of such a traveller’s cheque here:
My question: why does American Express specify Montreal? Toronto has been Canada’s financial centre for years–it has the country’s largest stock exchange, is involved in international currency trading, and is a Canadian home to the Bank Westminster (UK), Chase (US), Barclay’s (UK), HKBC, and other internationally-known banks and financial institutions. Montreal, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t have offices for any of these institutions.
So why are AmEx traveller’s cheques in Canadian dollars bought and sold on Montreal?
I guess it’s a holdover of the past. Back in the days when commercial international transactions were done by cheque or bill of exchange, the place of payment of a cheque or bil of exchange would matter; such documents would be issued all over the world, but could then be traded as negotiale documents and also netted against each other, but netting would require that their place of payment is the same. And it seems that Montreal as a fnancial centre is actually older than Toronto, if you compare the founding dates of the two stock exchangeson Wikipedia.
So my take on this would be that at a time when there were very practical consequences attached to the place of payment of a cheque, Montreal was established as the standard place for cheques on Canadian currency. Nowadays the “bankers’ cheque on Montreal” clause on a traveller’s cheque has little actual meaning, and Toronto has since overtaken Montreal as a leading financial centre, but out of tradition American Express still puts the clause in.
Historically, Montreal was seen as the principal financial and commercial centre in Canada. It not only had the first stock exchange but also the first bank (Bank of Montreal), the first joint-stock Canadian company, etc. Toronto developed a little bit later, and was seen as a specialist financial centre, focussing on the mining industry, and on commodities. (Chicago to Montreal’s New York, maybe?) Early attempts at founding stock exchanges in Toronto foundered because there simply wasn’t enough trading being done. (The present Toronto exchange is the third.)
Toronto benefitted hugely from a mining boom in the 1890s, and by the 1920s the two cities were probably of similar importance as financial centres, through Montreal had the cachet of seniority. Both were badly hurt in the 1929 crash, but Toronto recovered more strongly in the 1930s, mainly due to the decision of the US government to raise the price of gold to $35/oz, which led to a strong recovering in the mining industry. The non-mining sectors towards which Montreal was more heavily weighted were much slower to recover. Trading volume in Toronto surpassed Montreal in 1935, and has remained ahead ever since.
Can I ask a follow-up question? The choice of preposition seems odd (“negotiable at current buying rate for bankers cheques ON Montreal”), or is “Montreal” a metonym for “The Montreal Exchange”?