How Canada Started Opening Its Financial Infrastructure

Canada builds its payments foundation around safety and trust.¹ The Canadian Payments Association is created in 1980 under what is now the Canadian Payments Act. Payments Canada now owns and operates national payment systems including Lynx and the Automated Clearing Settlement System. The design reflects a clear priority: money movement is critical infrastructure, and critical infrastructure has to be reliable.

For a long time, that model works well enough for most people. Consumers trust their banks. Businesses use established payment tools. Settlement happens in the background. Most Canadians never need to think about who has direct access to the rails because the system mostly shows up as cards, transfers, bill payments, payroll, and cheques.

The market changes faster than the rails. Digital commerce grows. Mobile payments spread. Online transfers become a daily habit. Payments Canada’s 2025 trends report says Canada processed 22.5 billion retail payment transactions worth $12.2 trillion in 2024, with digital payments representing 86% of transaction volume.²

Fintechs start building around systems they can’t fully access. KOHO, Neo Financial, Float, Wise Payments Canada, Paramount Commerce, Brim, and Newton grow because customers want simpler financial products. The problem isn’t demand. The problem is that many new firms still depend on infrastructure controlled by others.

Competition becomes the pressure point. Critics of Canada’s payments model argue that control by a small number of large institutions has contributed to high fees, delay, and limited competition. Reuters reported this criticism when the Bank of Canada began payment service provider registration under the Retail Payment Activities Act.³

The fintech argument becomes practical. If firms outside the largest banks can’t connect on fair terms, they often need intermediaries, workarounds, sponsorship relationships, or slower product paths. That affects costs, margins, speed to market, and the ability to challenge incumbents with better consumer and business experiences.

Ottawa starts changing the legal frame. Finance Canada says amendments to the Canadian Payments Act made on June 20, 2024 expand Payments Canada membership eligibility to Bank of Canada supervised payment service providers, credit union locals that are part of a credit union central, and designated clearing and settlement system operators.⁴

The Bank of Canada brings PSPs into supervision. Under the Retail Payment Activities Act, the Bank registers and supervises payment service providers and focuses on operational risk, incident response, safeguarding end user funds, and reporting. As of September 8, 2025, PSPs must have risk management and funds safeguarding frameworks in place.⁵

Real Time Rail becomes the execution test. Payments Canada says the Real Time Rail is planned for launch in Q4 2026 and will support instant, data rich payments through a new exchange, clearing, and settlement system.⁶ The promise is simple: money should move faster, carry better data, and support new products.

The delays create frustration because the opportunity is real. Payments Canada selected Interac as the exchange solution provider in 2021, when the system was expected to launch in 2022.⁷ NCFA has tracked the execution question through RTR delay coverage and RTR productivity analysis.

The first wave of PSP members makes the policy visible. Payments Canada welcomes Wise Payments Canada, Float, KOHO, Paramount Commerce, and Brim as new payment service provider members in January 2026.⁸ NCFA tracks that moment when Payments Canada admits five new PSPs.

The membership base then widens again. Meridian Credit Union becomes the first new provincial credit union member under the expanded eligibility rules.⁹ Neo Financial joins as a new PSP member in May 2026.¹⁰ By June, Beem, Ebury, Shaype, Libro, and Newton join the list.

Membership is not only about access to rails. Payments Canada’s by law changes update membership requirements and support new eligible members as Canadian Payments Act amendments come into force.¹¹ Membership gives new firms a closer role in the rules, standards, and modernization discussions that shape the system.

That changes the politics of infrastructure. A fintech that has to build around the system is one kind of participant. A fintech that can join, comply, learn the rules, and contribute to modernization discussions is another. The same applies to credit unions, FX firms, and other payment providers that want a role in Canada’s next financial infrastructure chapter.

Consumer driven banking brings the same access debate to financial data. Finance Canada says the framework is meant to let Canadians securely access and share financial data with financial service providers, without fees for accessing and sharing that data, while reducing reliance on risky practices such as screen scraping.¹² The Bank of Canada says it will administer the framework so Canadians and businesses can securely share financial data with approved providers of their choice.¹³

But the friction does not disappear just because the law changes. Tier one banks, fintechs, data aggregators, and policymakers still have to work through scope, liability, accreditation, implementation timelines, commercial terms, and API performance. NCFA’s open banking commercialization roadmap frames the next phase as real API usage, accreditation, liability, and business model design, not just a policy announcement.

Stablecoins pull the payments debate into digital money. Bill C 15 gives Canada a legal framework for stablecoins and consumer driven banking, moving both into the financial policy stack. NCFA framed that moment in Bill C 15 gives Canada a digital finance framework.

The payment infrastructure question is no longer only about bank rails. Stablecoins, payment service providers, RTR, consumer driven banking, and Bank of Canada oversight are starting to occupy the same policy conversation. NCFA’s question post on stablecoins as payment infrastructure shows why digital money now belongs in the same access debate.

Canada’s payments story now connects directly to productivity. The Bank of Canada has warned that weak productivity threatens living standards, and NCFA has linked payments modernization to execution, competitiveness, and growth. Faster settlement, better data, lower friction, and more competition are not abstract infrastructure benefits. They affect how firms operate every day.

Cross border capability becomes part of the same test. Canada’s payment system cannot only work well at home. Canadian businesses, newcomers, exporters, marketplaces, and financial platforms also need better global money movement. That is why NCFA’s cross border payments analysis belongs beside RTR, open banking, and stablecoins.