Payments Canada begins webinar series to support public consultation on the Real-Time Rail legal framework
On May 22, Payments Canada held the first session in a series of educational webinars to support broad public engagement on the legal framework for the Real-Time Rail (RTR), Canada’s forthcoming real-time payment system.
The webinars are designed to inform responses to a public consultation, happening May 20, 2025 until July 2, 2025. Responses to the consultation will inform the legal framework critical to ensuring the RTR’s safety, efficiency and resiliency.
Over 270 attendees joined the first webinar, titled Payments Canada and the Real-Time Rail Explained. Jude Pinto, Chief Delivery Officer, and Janet Lalonde, Vice President of Business Program Delivery, provided an overview of Payments Canada’s mandate and introduced the RTR.
Jude opened the session by emphasizing the importance of the public consultation in engaging the broader payment ecosystem. He explained that this consultation builds on Payments Canada’s 2020 RTR consultation, which informed efforts to expand membership and shaped the RTR’s fraud mitigation approach.
Before discussing the RTR, Janet provided an overview of Payments Canada, which has a legislative mandate set out in the Canadian Payments Act and is regulated by the Bank of Canada and the Minister of Finance. She then introduced the RTR by outlining the system’s functional requirements, approach to risk mitigation and key system components, including the real-time exchange, real-time settlement and third-party exchange.
Janet explained that the RTR is a real-time gross settlement payment system, meaning that payments are final and irrevocable with no batching, netting or deferral of settlement. She described the RTR as a fast, always-on alternative to existing payment methods, where payment messages are exchanged and fully settled within seconds.
This series of educational webinars will run over the next three weeks, with a new session each Thursday. Upcoming topics include: RTR access and participation, RTR recourse and compliance and RTR fraud management.
The webinars are publicly available in both official languages. Each webinar will be followed by a bilingual Q and A session. Questions can be submitted in advance to consultation@payments.ca.
Recordings of the webinars are publicly available in both official languages on both the Education page and on Payments Canada’s YouTube channel.
