Payments Canada has submitted its 2026 pre-budget brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, setting out three recommendations for the federal government. It asks Ottawa to continue supporting the Q4 2026 launch of Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR), explore how the new rail could improve government disbursements, and implement the National Anti-Fraud Strategy with stronger information sharing across sectors and with regulators. Payments Canada presents the RTR as critical national payment infrastructure that will enable instant, data-rich payments on a 24/7 basis using the ISO 20022 standard. The submission links the RTR to faster cash flow for small businesses, instant wage and emergency payments, lower reliance on paper cheques, and more automated reconciliation through richer payment data. For government payments, it highlights the potential to replace fragmented legacy processes, noting that cheque processing costs CAD 15 to CAD 25 per transaction and that the Canada Revenue Agency holds more than 10 million uncashed cheques worth CAD 1.9 billion. On fraud, it says the RTR is being built with mitigation tools including confirmation of payee, a national risk list, and data, analytics and reporting capabilities, and argues that a multi-sector anti-fraud framework is needed because scams often exploit gaps between financial institutions, telecommunications providers and digital platforms.
Payments Canada2026-06-04
Payments Canada pre budget submission calls for continued support for Real Time Rail and a national anti fraud strategy
Payments Canada has submitted its 2026 pre-budget brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, urging continued federal support for the Q4 2026 launch of the Real-Time Rail (RTR), exploration of RTR use for government disbursements, and implementation of a National Anti-Fraud Strategy. It positions the RTR as critical national payment infrastructure enabling instant, data-rich ISO 20022 payments that could reduce cheque reliance, improve cash flow and reconciliation, and modernise government payment processes. The brief also highlights embedded fraud mitigation tools in the RTR and calls for a multi-sector framework to address scams exploiting gaps between financial institutions, telecommunications providers and digital platforms.