After the end of World War II, Imperial was the country's fifth-largest bank, with assets under administration of approximately $270 billion.

The Imperial Bank of Canada opened in Toronto on March 18, 1875, founded by former Commerce Vice-president Henry Stark Howland.

The 1896 gold strike in the Yukon prompted the Dominion Government to ask the Canadian Bank of Commerce to open a branch in Dawson City.

Mackersy thought that a takeover of a small bank such as Imperial was inevitable, but preferred to work with domestic rather than British concerns.

[14] In 2000, CIBC signed an agreement with the New York-based Aplettix Inc., a firm specializing in secure transaction systems in the banking sector; although the partnership was later abandoned for alternatives such as VeriSign.

CIBC was a minority shareholder in Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays, with partner Labatt's Breweries from their inception in 1977.

Li had reportedly backed personal and commercial banking head Holger Kluge to succeed Al Flood as CEO of CIBC in 1999.

[20][21] Four months later, the bank announced it signed a deal to buy a CA$2.1-billion credit card portfolio from Citigroup's Citibank Canada MasterCard business.

[23] In April 2013, CIBC reached an agreement with Invesco to acquire Atlantic Trust, the company's wealth management unit for US$210 million.

[26] In April 2017, CIBC, announced it would move its headquarters to the Bay Park Centre under development by Hines Interests Limited Partnership and Ivanhoé Cambridge.

[28] In November 2018, CBC reported that CIBC was among the top brands used in phishing attacks, with the bank seeing a surge in fake mail attempts that prior quarter by 600%.

In February 2004, Hunkin forced his friend and heir-apparent, David Kassie, to resign as chairman and CEO of World Markets after several scandals in the US.

Kassie afterwards founded Genuity Capital and was alleged to have raided 20 key employees from World Markets for his new startup, causing CIBC to file suit.

[35] Gerald T. McCaughey became Kassie's replacement heading World Markets and in February 2004, was promoted to president and chief operating officer, assuring his succession as CEO.

[36] Shortly after assuming his position, McCaughey reportedly dismissed Jill Denham, vice chair of retail markets and a potential rival for the CEO post.

Denham was reportedly a close ally of Hunkin and Kassie, and McCaughey wanted to build his own senior executive team.

CIBC has supported TRU students by providing financial awards, co-operative education programs, employment, and training positions.

[47] In June 2007, Dara Fresco, a Toronto teller, along with current and former non-management, non-unionized employees, who are or were tellers and other front-line customer service employees, working within Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's (CIBC) various retail branch offices across Canada; brought on a $600 million class-action lawsuit against their employer, CIBC, in regards to lack of overtime pay.

Fresco v Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce alleges that class members are assigned heavier workloads than could be completed within their standard working hours.

[48] The Ontario Superior Court dismissed the suit June 18, 2012, stating the evidence "provides no basis that there was, in fact, a systemic practice of unpaid overtime at CIBC.

[54] On December 22, 2003, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined CIBC US$80 million for its role in the manipulation of Enron financial statements.

Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the SEC's division of enforcement, said, "by knowingly financing customers' late trading and market timing, as well as providing financing in amounts far greater than the law allows, CIHI and World Markets boosted their customers' trading profits at the expense of long-term mutual fund shareholders.

[60] On April 18, 2005, the privacy commissioner of Canada expressed disappointment in the way CIBC dealt with incidents involving the bank misdirecting faxes containing customers' personal information.

[63] Within days of reports by CTV News and The Globe and Mail, CIBC management announced a directive that banned employees from using fax machines to transmit any documents containing confidential customer information.

[65] The incident stemmed from the disappearance of a hard drive containing information on "the process used to open and administer" customer accounts as it was traveling between the bank's Montreal and Toronto offices.

[66] The privacy commissioner of Canada stated, "Although I appreciate that the bank notified us of this incident and that it is working cooperatively with my Office, I am nevertheless deeply troubled, especially given the magnitude of this breach, which puts at risk the personal information of hundreds of thousands of Canadians."

[68] On May 20, 2004, CIBC announced that it would refund CA$24 million to some of its customers as a result of erroneous overdraft and mortgage charges which were discovered in the course of an internal review.

[69] In a similar incident, CIBC announced April 27, 2006 that it's refunding an additional CA$27 million to about 200,000 clients who were overcharged for certain overdraft fees and other borrowing transactions, some of which date back to 1993.

[70] On 27 May 2022, CIBC's London, UK office was sued after Zhuofang Wei, a former executive of the firm, accused the managers of sexual and racial discrimination.

In 2023, CIBC was fined CA$1.3 million by Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada for "non-compliance with money laundering and terrorist financing measures".