Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Betakit | | March 2, 2021

Source: Pixabay
Payments Canada has selected its second solution provider for the country’s upcoming real-time payments system. Interac Corp. has been selected as the exchange solution provider for the Real-Time Rail (RTR). Expected to launch in 2022, RTR consists of two components: a clearing and settlement component and an exchange component. Mastercard-owned Vocalink was selected last year to operate the settlement component.
A real-time payment system designed to modernize Canada’s core payments infrastructure, RTR will allow for payments to be sent and received within seconds. The system will be operated by Payments Canada and regulated by the Bank of Canada. The idea behind RTR is to create a payment system that is fast, secure, and flexible, to allow for innovation.
Interac might be considered a natural choice for Payments Canada to work with when it comes to building the exchange. Interac is set to use the already-existing technology behind its Interac e-Transfer service to build the exchange component of Canada’s RTR. Interac e-Transfer is currently used by millions of Canadians daily and connects to almost 300 financial institutions in the country.
“The Real-Time Rail will be the foundation for faster, data-rich payments and act as a platform for innovation,” said Black. “Participants in the payment system will be able to connect and develop new and exciting ways for Canadians to pay for goods and services, transfer money and better compete nationally and internationally.”
While Canada has been working to modernize its payments infrastructure in recent years, the country has long lagged behind other similar markets when it comes to payments innovation; more than 54 other countries around the world already use a similar type of RTR system. The RTR project began in 2015 with consultations involving more than 100 organizations within the payments ecosystem.
Among those organizations are Canadian FinTech startups, who have faced many barriers trying to bring competitive products to market, including receiving banking licenses and pulling customers away from the Big Banks.
How the choice to work with Interac will affect Canadian FinTechs is unclear. Currently, FinTech startups cannot directly access e-transfer rails, which is the peer-to-peer (P2P) method in Canada. Historically, Interac’s system has been more easily accessible for traditional incumbents like the Big Five banks.
A member of the Canadian FinTech community told BetaKit that
if Interac chooses to adopt a fair policy and payments framework that includes FinTechs instead of upholding the status quo, it could be a positive step for startups. “If Interac opens up, it could work, but their track record is not encouraging,” the source said.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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The Finanser | Chris Skinner
Chris Skinner:
Traditional banks tend to push products through channels to get greater share of wallet and cross sell. Whereas, digital banks start with the customer journey and need, and then build the user experience to be part of a relationship interaction digitally, rather than trying to actually sell them anything.
James Robert Lay:
Greetings and hello. I am James Robert Lay and welcome to the 67th episode of the Banking on Digital Growth podcast. Today’s episode is part of the Exponential Insight series, and I’m excited to welcome Chris Skinner to the show. Chris is an author, speaker, and troublemaker, according to his LinkedIn profile. I like that. And Chris has written 14 books, most recently Doing Digital: Lessons from Leaders. He also writes a daily blog and consults about the future of banking. Hello, Chris, and welcome to the show.
Chris Skinner:
Hi, James. Thanks for inviting me. Great to be here.
James Robert Lay:
Yeah. And I think you mentioned before you do a lot of thinking about the future and when we think about the future, particularly through the lens of financial services, it can be hard to let go of the past. This idea of being built on the cloud natively, it’s operational, it’s mindset. And you share in your book Doing Digital, that banks must create a burning platform to ignite change for transformation, to spark change of transformation. Can you expand on this thinking about creating a burning platform? Is this really about first principles thinking, starting over instead of duct taping something that’s really falling apart, or just trying to hold things together for the old world?
Chris Skinner:
Well, there’s over 30 lessons in the book that I sort of outlined from the interviews I made over six months with these five big banks. But you start with obviously working out what to do and how to do it and getting a vision around how to digitally transform. And then you have to disturb people and make the organization uncomfortable. This is what Jamie’s doing with this “I’m scared shitless about FinTech.” He’s been doing it for a number of years in fact. I think his first time was about 2014, “Silicon Valley’s coming to eat our lunch.” And there’s been regular mantra from Jamie around effecting change and disturbing people. That’s quite funny, because when you look and track what he’s been saying about Bitcoin, for example, it’s turned around from, “Bitcoin is just a Ponzi scheme for criminals” to, “It’s worth $146,000 by the end of this year and we should invest in it.”
So it’s interesting how things change. And I think the critical thing is it’s great to have a burning platform and say, “We’re all going to die unless we change,” which actually is another thing I heard from two of the banks. You know, if we don’t transform, we die. But you have to then say, “What are we transforming to?” And I use the quote often of Charles Darwin, which is “It’s not the fittest, the fastest, the most intelligent or the strongest who survive. It’s the ones who are most adaptable to change.”
But the thing is, and my challenge to most banks, is are you adapting to change in the right way?
If you’re delegating digital transformation to a CFO or CTO, CIO, CDO, giving them a budget and a project to implement in a line of business that’s fragmented, you’re really not going to survive. Because you have to digitally transform as a company with a leadership team who are passionate about making the whole company change.
And you really have to adapt, not necessarily in a way that’s rigid. In a way that says, “Well, we have to have a vision of the way forward, so this is where we need to try and get.” It’s not a fixed destination. It’s a continuum of change to make this organization fit the 21st century based on the internet and born on the internet. And that’s the huge challenge for any bank leadership team, because most banks are led by bankers who don’t understand technological requirements.
James Robert Lay:
We’re burning the ships. We’re either going to survive or we’re going to die, and we have to keep moving forward.” But what’s holding bank leadership teams back the most, or maybe a better question is about specifically vision, is what’s blinding them to begin with in the first place?
Chris Skinner:
Well, I think, and again, going back to Jamie Dimon’s comments. He points at Square, Pay Pal, but also Ant Group and Amazon and says, “You know, these guys are going to be taking all of our business.” And that’s the disturbance, but then you have to then say, “So how are we going to change? And what do we have to change into?” And it’s a metamorphosis. It’s not a reengineering. It’s a complete reinvention, renewal. And I think what blinds them and holds them back is the challenge of doing that is humongous. It’s really not easy.
There’s a couple of great books that I’ve used through my years of talking about this. One is How Do You Make the Elephant Dance? by Lou Gerstner, talking about turning around IBM in the 1990s. But more recently Satya Nadella’s book about Microsoft. When you look at Microsoft and the turn around there, you go,
“That’s amazing that you can take a company that’s stubborn, saturated, sinking, and suddenly make it nimble and quick and turn around.”
How did they do that? It’s really about recognizing the cultural needs. Digital transformation has nothing to do with technology. It’s about people. It’s about making people understand that they have a voice, and they have an ability to enable change. They’re not just being told what to do, but they can tell us what to do.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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FCA Consultation | Jan 28, 2021

To address these, we’re proposing amendments to our Technical Standards on Strong Customer Authentication and Common and Secure Methods of Communication. We’re also taking this opportunity to amend our guidance on prudential risk management and safeguarding in our Approach Document (AD), and make general updates to a number of areas and onshoring-related changes. We’re also updating our Perimeter Guidance Manual (PERG).
One section of the CP, relating to contactless payments, will close on 24 February 2021. The rest will close on 30 April 2021.
The payments landscape has grown and evolved in recent years, as business models adapt to user needs. The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has accelerated these changes. This consultation will help us make sure regulatory expectations keep pace with the changing landscape.
We want to remove identified barriers to continued growth, innovation and competition in the payments and e-money sector (including open banking), while making the sector more resilient and protecting consumers if firms fail.
Payment service providers (PSPs) and e-money issuers, as well as trade bodies representing them, should read this consultation. Our proposals affect credit institutions providing payment services and/or issuing e-money, as well as payment institutions (PIs), e-money institutions (EMIs) and registered account information services providers (RAISPs).
It also applies to firms that are subject to the temporary permission regime (TPR) and the financial services contracts regime (FSCR) set out in Schedule 3 of the Electronic Money, Payment Services and Payment Systems (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 (Exit SI). It also applies to Gibraltar firms providing payment services in the UK.
It may be of interest to:
In our 2020/2021 Business Plan, we identified the payments sector as a priority for the next 3 years. Our work intends to make sure: consumers transact safely with payment firms; payment firms meet their regulatory obligations while competing on quality and value; and consumers and SMEs have access to a variety of payment services.
In this consultation paper, we’re also proposing changes to the AD to reflect the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union and the end of the transition period.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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AltFi | Aisling Finn | Feb 18, 2021
The fintech’s business customers will be able to take payments via QR codes, helping to maintain social distancing.
Taking one step closer to becoming a ‘financial super app’, Revolut is rolling out QR codes for its business customers.
From today, Revolut’s business customers across 25 countries will be able to take in-person, socially-distanced payments via a QR code.
The touch-free payment method allows for instant payments, with small business owners able to see if a payment has been successful right away.
For businesses interested in implementing this technology, they can generate their own QR codes.
Paulo Guichard, product owner for Acquiring at Revolut said: “The popularity of QR codes has increased as this payment method is quick, easy and allows people to make socially distanced payments which are increasingly important during the global pandemic.”
“We’ve removed the need for additional devices or hardware, as all business owners have to do is use their Revolut Business app and show customers a QR code to accept payments straight away through this efficient and touch-free method.”
Revolut Business customers can generate a QR code in the app which the customer can scan on their mobile phones from a safe distance.
The new feature will be rolled out to customers across Europe, including Croatia, Greece, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia and here in the UK too.
Revolut isn’t the first to introduce QR payments for its business customers.
Back in March 2020, ANNA Money, in collaboration with financial API provider TrueLayer, announced it would let its business customers settle payments using the method.
Similarly, messaging platform Whatsapp, which has extended its capabilities in several countries to include payments, allows customers in certain countries to pay using QR codes.
In China, the use of QR codes is far more popular, with social media platform WeChat launching WeChat Pay, which lets users pay via QR code, all the way back in 2013.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Asset Servicing Times | Feb 3, 2021

Developments in technology, evolving customer behaviour and new market dynamics are all catalysts for change in the payments space. Recent research has suggested that banks are committed to investing in areas such as digitising customer journeys, introducing machine learning, and improving technological and operational resilience, and this hasn’t been swayed by the pandemic.
Real-time payments are becoming increasingly popular as they allow participants to make and receive instant payments, providing convenience, speed, and faster availability of funds. Payments Canada recently selected Mastercard’s Vocalink as the clearing and settlement solution provider for the country’s new real-time payments system, the Real-Time Rail (RTR).
Experts say Canada continues to hold a strong position among institutional investors on the world stage, in keeping with the strength of its financial markets and ‘big six’ banks — the National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank, the Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Scotiabank, and Toronto Dominion Bank.
Canada’s financial sector features robust and mature markets, stability and transparency, proven infrastructure, efficient settlement mechanisms and a well evolved regulatory framework – along with a focus on controlled innovation. In line with the consolidated nature of Canada’s financial sector, the payments landscape also focuses on the major bank-driven players.
“In Canada, we see a synthesis of domestic innovation combined with global connectivity, with local players deploying Canadian solutions where they make sense according to Canada’s financial markets and infrastructure, while also driving connectivity or access to global platforms where either scale and accessibility make them the right direction — or, particularly in the retail space, where client demands and appetite for global solutions fits,” explains Lloyd Sebastian, vice president, global financial institutions, at CIBC Mellon.
For example, Interac is a payment network jointly owned by the consortium of banks, which links the banks along with other financial institutions, retailers and others to enable more seamless electronic financial transactions. With Canadian consumers concentrated on a small group of big six players who offer integrated Interac services, that is likely to continue to shape consumer use.
In line with efficiency and convenience priorities in Canada, Payments Canada is marching ahead with its journey to modernise the country’s core payments infrastructure. “Its vision is to build a modern payments system that is fast, flexible, secure and promotes innovation,” says Sebastian.
As part of these developments, Payments Canada has selected Mastercard’s Vocalink as the clearing and settlement solution provider for the country’s new real-time payments system, the RTR. Expected to launch in 2022, RTR will support payment information travelling with payments and act as a platform for innovation, enabling the introduction of new payment products and experiences.
While RTR is operated by Payments Canada, it is underpinned by the ISO 20022 data standard, and regulated by the Bank of Canada. Canada’s new real-time payments system will consist of two components including a clearing and settlement component provided by Mastercard; and an exchange component.
As well as the upcoming launch of the RTR system in 2021, Lynx, a new high-value payments system to replace the Large Value Transfer System is set to launch this year.
“Introducing Lynx is a fundamental part of Payments Canada’s modernisation program that will transform the country’s payments ecosystem. Lynx will replace Canada’s current Large Value Payments System. The Lynx system will be a world-class, high-value payments system built in compliance with Canadian and international risk standards and will support the global ISO 20022 messaging standard,” says Payments Canada’s Grundy.
Lack of data and transparency within payment messages is a major challenge in Canada’s payment space and this creates a number of inefficiencies for businesses of all sizes. This includes labour-intensive payments reconciliation, limited predictability of cash inflows and outflows, difficulty tracking cross-border payments, and continued reliance on manual back-end processes.
As Lynx and RTR will be underpinned by the ISO 20022 messaging standard, they should be able to support businesses in overcoming these challenges.
“The standard enables the transfer of rich data with payments, a change that has the potential to improve automation and efficiency, reducing many pain points for Canadian businesses,” explains Grundy.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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