Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for allowing Royal Bank of Canada to contribute to the discussion on the lobster fishery and access to credit. My name is Peter Conrod, and I've been an executive officer with Royal Bank for six years. As regional vice-president of commercial financial services in the Atlantic region, I hold responsibility for our commercial business in Atlantic Canada and lead a team of 114 people dedicated to serving our commercial business clients.
Roughly 31% of commercial businesses in Atlantic Canada would consider RBC to be their primary banker, and RBC holds the lead market share in both business loans and business deposits. Recent numbers indicate we have $202 million in authorized business loans to the fishing industry, with outstanding loans totalling $111 million. Sixty-six per cent of our fishery loan portfolio is extended to processors and wholesalers, with 23% being provided to our harvester clients. The remaining 11% of the portfolio is extended to the finfish segment. Of the $202 million in authorized business loans, approximately 89% is to the shellfish segment, with most of that to the lobster sector.
As it pertains to your area of interest, RBC has been active in providing financial support to the lobster fishery by way of term loans to the lobster fishers to finance the purchase of both vessels and licences. We provide term loans to the lobster fisher to finance equipment purchases, and provide operating loans, term loans, and foreign exchange facilities to lobster pound operators.
Of most interest to this committee may be our support to the lobster fishers. Roughly six years ago we designed a term lending program to support the purchase of a vessel and a licence. The program provides up to 75% financing of both the vessel and the licence, with the vessel loan being structured to be repaid over 10 years and the licence loan over five years. In effect, given the typical split, this provides roughly seven years' financing of the combined assets.
This is purposely done over seven years, as we knew from our years of experience in the industry that there would be challenging years for our lobster fishers, and this structure allowed us to waive principal payments in those years when they were cashflow challenged. This past winter we saw another of those challenging years in which prices at the wharf were low and demand for the product in the United States and Europe was soft. We reached out to have one-on-one conversations with our clients, and where they were cashflow challenged, we offered to waive the semi-annual principal payment typically due on the loan: approximately 25% of our clients took us up on that offer.
The same offer is being made to our clients this month, as our loan structures typically have a second principal payment due the end of June. It's too early to determine how many of our clients may take us up on our offer to waive the principal payments this month.
Our fishing industry clients are typically served by RBC commercial account managers who work and live in the same communities where our clients live, such as Barrington Passage, West Pubnico, Yarmouth, Church Point, and Digby.
In summary, Royal Bank of Canada has been an active supplier of debt capital to the lobster fishery, and we will continue to serve this segment well. Our lending policies remain unchanged over the past six years, despite today's very challenging times, and we are open for business to support industry participants who are not clients of RBC today.
Thank you.