Payments Canada published a commentary by Chief Payments Officer Donna Kinoshita setting out how the forthcoming Real-Time Rail (RTR) is intended to modernize Canada’s payments infrastructure, enabling always-on instant payments and supporting innovation through richer data, broader participation and embedded network-level security. Drawing on its Canadian Payment Methods and Trends report, Payments Canada cited a market of 22.5 billion transactions valued at CAD 12.2 trillion, while noting that cheques still represented CAD 2.7 trillion in value in 2024 (22% of total value) despite a 10% year-on-year decline in volume. RTR is designed to adopt ISO 20022 so structured remittance data can travel with payments to reduce manual reconciliation and enable end-to-end automation, and it is positioned as a foundation for potential interoperability with other real-time payment systems. The piece also highlighted legislative amendments to the Canadian Payments Act and the Retail Payment Activities Act that came into force in 2025, expanding Payments Canada membership eligibility to include payment service providers, credit union locals and designated clearing houses, with PSPs potentially able to access RTR directly if requirements are met. On fraud, Payments Canada described centralized capabilities planned “from day one”, including fraud scoring, real-time risk monitoring and confirmation of payee, alongside research indicating 13% of Canadians experienced fraud over a six-month period. Payments Canada also referenced a post-launch “fast-follow” roadmap, including enhancements to support adoption, consumer-driven banking “write” access and global interoperability.

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