In 2015 Canada embarked on a “very audacious” multi-year programme to modernise all its payment rails at the same time, according to Tracey Black, president and CEO of Payments Canada, which oversees the national payment systems. “We opted to upgrade or replace our existing payment systems, and build a new real-time system,” she says.
The programme began with a revamp of the retail batch payment system, introducing a new risk model and adding a third settlement window. Payments Canada also relaxed participation requirements to allow direct access to a wider group of members.
