Frictionless finance: Unlocking real-time growth for Canadian businesses

A Q&A with Rob Khazzam, Co-Founder and CEO of Float.

Float works with over 6,000 Canadian businesses every day toward a simple goal: To ensure these businesses have modern, reliable and efficient ways to move money so they can operate and grow without friction. To support this goal, Float has become a member of Payments Canada; a critical first step toward accessing Canada’s national payment infrastructure, including the forthcoming Real-Time Rail (RTR). We sat down with Rob Khazzam, Co-Founder and CEO of Float, to discuss why a "seat at the table" matters and how real-time payments will put working capital to work faster for Canadians and their businesses.

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Why did Float become a member of Payments Canada?
Float joined Payments Canada to help shape the future of Canada’s payment infrastructure while representing the needs of the thousands of businesses we serve every day.

Canadian businesses increasingly expect payments to move faster, more transparently and with better data. Fintech platforms like Float sit close to those real operational needs, and membership allows us to bring that perspective directly into the conversation about how the system evolves.

How does your organization plan to use Canada’s forthcoming Real-Time Rail payment system to benefit Canadian consumers, businesses and the overall Canadian payment industry?
One of the biggest inefficiencies in Canada today is the amount of working capital that gets trapped. Businesses send a payment today, but the funds may not arrive for days. That means capital sitting idle instead of being put to work.

The RTR fundamentally changes that dynamic. We plan to use the RTR to allow businesses to move money in real time: instantly funding Float accounts, paying vendors exactly when a payment is due and receiving funds immediately rather than waiting through multi-day settlement windows.

For many small and mid-sized businesses, liquidity timing matters. Delays in settlement force companies to hold unnecessary cash buffers simply to manage payment uncertainty. The RTR reduces that friction by allowing funds to move exactly when they are needed.

Over time, as real-time payments become widely available, expectations will shift. A payment taking multiple days to arrive will begin to feel outdated. Businesses will expect money to move instantly, and fintech platforms like Float will build products that operate in that new real-time environment.

What initial and long term benefits do your organization and your clients expect to see from the use of the RTR?
The immediate benefit is liquidity.

The RTR allows businesses to stop parking excess capital simply to manage payment timing. Instead of sending funds days in advance or waiting for incoming payments to settle, businesses will be able to move money precisely when it is needed.

For Float customers, this means instantly funding Float accounts, paying vendors in real time rather and receiving funds immediately with confirmation and rich payment data attached.

This reduces the need for workarounds such as wires, early payment buffers or maintaining unnecessary cash reserves. Finance teams gain much more precise control over when money moves.

Over the longer term, the RTR enables a shift toward real-time financial operations. Businesses will no longer need to design their workflows around settlement delays. Payments can be triggered exactly when a transaction occurs or when a rule is met.

For example, supplier payments triggered automatically when an invoice is approved, with funds moving instantly between accounts. Instead of capital sitting idle while payments clear, it can move continuously to wherever it is needed.

For Float, the RTR creates the foundation to build more automated treasury, payables and spend management workflows for Canadian businesses.

Picture the Canadian payment landscape five years from now, what is one major change or achievement you hope your organization will have spearheaded through its membership?
Five years from now, we hope to have fundamentally transformed how Canadian businesses access and move money.

With the RTR on the horizon and rapid progress in both digital asset infrastructure and payment innovation, Float is focused on equipping Canadian businesses and the finance teams behind them with a modern financial stack built for speed and automation.

Our goal is to make money movement faster, more affordable and friction-free, while giving businesses far greater visibility and control over their financial operations.

Ultimately, we want Float to be the infrastructure layer that helps Canadian businesses operate financially with the same sophistication that was once only available to large enterprises.

What payment trends or technologies do you think will have the greatest impact on the way we pay in the future? How will expanded Payments Canada membership eligibility support this change?
Three developments stand out: open banking, real-time money movement and intelligent treasury automation.

Together, these technologies will reshape how businesses hold, move and manage money. Financial operations will become more automated, data-driven and tightly integrated into business workflows.

Payments Canada’s expanded membership eligibility is meaningful for Float for two reasons. First, it gives fintech companies like ours a seat at the table to contribute the perspective of modern financial platforms serving Canadian businesses. Second, it keeps us close to the infrastructure changes happening across the ecosystem so we can translate those developments into real product improvements for our customers.

We see membership as a two-way relationship: helping shape the system while building better financial tools on top of it.

About Float

Float is the financial operating system for Canadian businesses to move, manage and grow their money. From high-limit corporate cards and automated expense management to bill payments, foreign exchange and business banking, Float brings essential financial tools into one unified platform.

Trusted by more than 6,000 Canadian companies, Float combines modern financial infrastructure with powerful software to help businesses control spending, simplify operations and access the capital they need to grow. Built in Canada for Canadian businesses, Float delivers world-class technology and fast, responsive support to power the next generation of Canadian companies.