Canada’s Real-Time Payments: Why Efficiency, Access and Accountability Must Move Together

On September 29, 2025, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that amendments to the Canadian Payments Act are coming into force and expanding Payments Canada membership eligibility to payment service providers (PSPs) supervised by the Bank of Canada, as well as credit union locals and operators of designated clearing and settlement systems. Finance Canada views the reform as a step toward faster, more secure and more innovative payments. Yet the broader problem remains unresolved: Canada does not yet have live Real-Time Rail (RTR) and is the only G7 country without a real-time payments system.

The primary goal of this case study is to examine whether broadening eligibility is enough, or whether Ottawa should govern the core rail more explicitly as public-interest infrastructure before the access model hardens.