Q2 Delivery Roadmap update

The second quarter of 2022 began with much excitement as more than 1,800 payment leaders from across the industry gathered virtually to discuss and debate the future of payments at this year’s Payments Canada SUMMIT.

We were especially pleased to have Abraham Tachjian, who spoke for the first time as Canada's new open banking lead, The Honourable Randy Boissonnault, MP, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, who spoke about plans to increase innovation, competition and diversity in Canada’s payment systems, and Keith Martell President and CEO of First Nations Bank of Canada, who reminded us why financial inclusion is so important. It was truly energizing to see the payment community come together to rally behind a common goal — to make payments easier, smarter and safer for all Canadians.

This energy and enthusiasm for the future of payments — and perhaps even a bit of nostalgia — was palpable as the organization marked the last day of operations for the Large Value Tranfer System (LVTS) on April 29. The LVTS served as Canada’s high-value payment system for over 22 years and cleared and settled over 133 million transactions valued at $846 trillion throughout it’s lifetime. My thanks go out to Payments Canada employees (past and present), our members, regulators and key partners who played a role in the successful operation of the LVTS over many, many years, and to those who continue to operate Lynx (LVTS’ successor) flawlessly today.

This past quarter, we reached a number of milestones across our current and future systems.

Lynx hit $50 trillion cleared and settled since the beginning of 2022. We entered the industry testing phase of Lynx Release Two — a critical milestone as we get closer to introducing the ISO 20022 messaging standard to the system in November. To learn more about this work and the value ISO 20022 will bring to Canada’s payment ecosystem, I encourage you to read this interview with Kevin O’Neil from SWIFT.

The Automated Clearing Settlement System (ACSS) surpassed $4.4 trillion cleared and settled. Peoples Trust Company joined the ACSS as the first new Direct Clearer since the system launched in 1984. A historic moment for Payments Canada, Peoples Trust and the payment ecosystem, made possible due to regulatory changes that removed a volume requirement for direct participation.

Now less than a year away from go-live, we continue to make progress on the Real-Time Rail (RTR). System delivery remains on track. We are currently in integration testing and we continue to take steps to ensure readiness for go-live in June 2023. There is much anticipation for the release of the Department of Finance’s public consultation paper on proposed amendments to the Canadian Payments Act - an important requirement needed to broaden access to our systems so that when we launch the RTR next year, we launch a service that best meets the needs of Canadians.

We ended the quarter by welcoming two new board directors: Sean Goldrick from Wells Fargo and Jennifer Hawkins from the Bank of Montreal, and three new appointees to our Member Advisory Council (MAC): John Landry from Citi, Adam Swinemar from Laurentian Bank of Canada, and Hanna Zaidi from Wealthsimple Investments Inc.

I look forward to working with our new and returning board of directors, along with our member and stakeholder advisory councils and our regulators, to ensure Payments Canada remains well positioned for the future.

Tracey Black
President & CEO
Payments Canada