North America · GDP rank #10
Canada
CA · CAD @ 0.7250/USD
Canada runs one of the higher-cost G7 card-payment stacks alongside a near-monopoly domestic debit scheme. Interac Debit handles essentially all card-present debit and Interac e-Transfer cleared roughly 1.6 billion transactions in 2025 — the country's de facto real-time retail rail. Payments Canada's Real-Time Rail (RTR) ended Q1 2026 in performance, security and resilience testing, with first participant access slipping to Q4 2026. Consumer-driven banking implementation is now sequenced under the Bank of Canada following the 2025 Budget reassignment from FCAC.
Tab 08
Pulse
The preceding ~90 days of macro, regulation, product, funding and milestone events. Each item is primary-sourced; no trade-press echo.
- 6 days agomilestone
Interac confirms 2025 e-Transfer at ~1.6 billion transactions, up roughly 13%
Interac's annual Corporate Year in Review reported e-Transfer cleared roughly 1.6 billion transactions in 2025 across about C$610 billion of value. The Business Request Money feature posted an 81% year-on-year increase, with August 2025 setting a single-month record above 638 million transactions.
- #interac
- #e-transfer
- #volume
- #data
Source: Interac Corp.
- 3 weeks agoregulation
Payments Canada Q1 2026 RTR update flags Q4 2026 first-phase access
In a quarterly update with COO Jude Pinto, Payments Canada said the Real-Time Rail is in performance, security and resilience testing in Q1 2026 after completing system integration testing in Q4 2025. Phased participant access starts Q4 2026, with broader availability through 2027. Wise, Float, Paramount Commerce, KOHO and Brim were named as recent PSP joiners.
- #rtr
- #payments-canada
- #delay
- #iso20022
Source: Payments Canada
- 5 weeks agodata
Bank of Canada 2024 MOP survey: cash holds at 21% of POS volume, 11% by value
The Bank of Canada released the 2024 Methods-of-Payment Survey Report. Cash use remained essentially flat against 2020–2023, at about 21% of POS transactions by volume and 11% by value. Average wallet cash holdings rose 11% in nominal terms to C$156. Cash is third-ranked at POS behind debit and credit.
- #bank-of-canada
- #cash
- #mop-survey
- #data
Source: Bank of Canada
- 2 months agoregulation
Bank of Canada closes first RPAA annual-report filing window with ~2,600 PSPs in scope
Federally registered payment service providers filed first-cycle operational-risk and safeguarding reports under the Retail Payment Activities Act. The Bank of Canada said all 2,600-plus registrants are now in scope; non-filers move into enforcement triage. Annual filing cadence formalises the supervisory regime that took effect in late 2025.
- #rpaa
- #bank-of-canada
- #psp
- #compliance
Source: Bank of Canada
- 2 months agoregulation
Federal budget reassigns consumer-driven banking supervision to Bank of Canada
The November 2025 federal budget transferred consumer-driven banking supervision from FCAC to the Bank of Canada to align with the Bank's existing PSP mandate. Phase 1 read access stays on track for 2026; payment initiation now targeted for mid-2027. The Department of Finance kept the policy lead.
- #cdr
- #open-banking
- #bank-of-canada
- #rpaa
Source: Department of Finance Canada
- 3 months agodata
CBA 2024 card-fraud losses reach C$1.29B as CNP share holds at 89%
Canadian Bankers Association data put 2024 credit-card fraud losses at C$1.29 billion, up 14% year-on-year. Card-not-present accounts for 89% of total losses — broadly in line with peer G7 markets but without the SCA backstop available under EU PSD2. Counterfeit fraud has collapsed to 2% of total under full EMV coverage.
- #fraud
- #cba
- #cnp
- #data
Source: Canadian Bankers Association