TORONTO (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Canada (>> Royal Bank of Canada) said on Tuesday that it had promoted Jennifer Tory to head of its personal and commercial banking business, replacing Dave McKay, who will become chief executive officer later this year.

Tory, 58, is currently RBC's regional president of Canadian banking for the Greater Toronto region. She will take on her new job, one of the highest-profile in the sector, in April.

Her responsibilities will include retail banking operations and certain retail investment businesses in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean for Canada's largest bank.

Domestic lending, long the key profit driver for Canadian banks, has been under heavy scrutiny over the last few years because of slowing loan growth and lingering questions about whether the country's housing market will suffer a hard fall.

McKay will take over as president at the bank's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday and will succeed Gordon Nixon at the bank's CEO in August.

RBC will also release its first-quarter results on Wednesday.

The leadership shuffle comes during a changing of the guard at two other top Canadian banks. Brian Porter took over from Rick Waugh as CEO of Bank of Nova Scotia (>> The Bank of Nova Scotia) last year, while Bharat Masrani will become CEO of Toronto-Dominion Bank (>> Toronto-Dominion Bank) in November, replacing Ed Clark.

(Reporting by Cameron French; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)