Digital Payments & Fintech - Canada

The Bank of Canada's supervision of payment service providers under the Retail Payment Activities Act came into force on 8 September 2025; PSPs performing electronic funds-transfer functions with a Canadian nexus must register, pass national-security screening (coordinated by the Department of Finance), maintain risk-management and funds-safeguarding frameworks, and file annual reports. Operating without applying risks substantial administrative monetary penalties.

The Bank of Canada began publishing the list of registered PSPs (and refused applicants) on 8 September 2025, updating it on a rolling basis as security screenings are finalized.

Money services businesses — covering foreign exchange, money transfer, money-order issuance/cashing, virtual-currency exchange and transfer, and crowdfunding platform services — must register (not licence) with FINTRAC under the PCMLTFA before operating; FINTRAC maintains a registry rather than issuing licences, and this is separate from and additional to RPAA registration.

A federal open-banking framework was enacted as the Consumer-Driven Banking Act; the Budget 2025 implementation (Bill C-15, royal assent 26 March 2026) replaced it with an expanded Act shifting supervision to the Bank of Canada. Phase one (read-access only) is underway, with write-access targeted for mid-2027; penalties reach up to CAD 10 million for entities.

Payments Canada completed the RTR technical build in Q3 2025 and moved through system-integration and user-acceptance testing into performance/security/resilience testing in Q1 2026; the government's 2026 Spring Economic Update lists the RTR as 'launching in 2026,' with PSPs (e.g., Wise, Float, KOHO, Brim) being onboarded as members.

Buy-now-pay-later has no single federal licensing regime; oversight is fragmented across general banking, consumer-protection (cost-of-borrowing disclosure) and provincial consumer-credit rules. After its 2021 pilot study flagged over-indebtedness risks, FCAC opted to keep monitoring and coordinate with provinces rather than recommend dedicated regulation.