The Real-Time Rail Quarterly Update with Jude Pinto: 2025 Q2
Jude Pinto, Chief Delivery Officer at Payments Canada, provides a quarterly update on the Real-Time Rail (RTR) sharing the program’s progress to date and future direction over the next three months.
The technical build of the RTR has achieved 60 per cent completion on all fronts and is on target to be finished, as planned in Q3 of 2025. The technical build phase, which will be followed by the testing phase, includes the build of real-time clearing and settlement application, the replatforming of the real-time exchange to be on a common infrastructure with the clearing and settlement system, technical preparations for the conversion to the real-time clearing and settlement system and the fraud foundational build.
The centralized fraud services build, which is also at 60 per cent complete, includes new protections for the ecosystem that will work in tandem with our member participants’ existing fraud controls. These new fraud controls will strengthen existing efforts and continuously evolve as the fraud landscape evolves and changes. New national RTR fraud services include a fraud transaction score, a fraud reporting and intelligence platform to keep track of losses and manage participants with outlier fraud results, a risk list for accounts with prior fraud reports and a confirmation of payee capability.
We are about to enter a comprehensive phase of internal technical testing that follows the technical build phase. Testing activities will encompass system integration, security, operational readiness, user acceptance and performance testing of the foundational fraud utility. We are working closely with our regulators and the industry to deliver this important piece of national infrastructure without compromising on safety and security.
The team is conducting an industry impact assessment in parallel to testing to understand the technical and operational changes for each member participant and the onboarding and readiness activities needed for new member participants. Joint workshops are being conducted with the industry to accomplish this work collaboratively. Analysis of these activities is also feeding into our deployment strategy, which will be dependent in part on the results of impact assessments, participant readiness and testing results.
Amendments to the Canadian Payments Act and the introduction of the Retail Payment Activities Act expands Payments Canada membership eligibility and therefore potential participation on the RTR. We are seeing growing interest around the qualifying criteria for membership and participation and how potential new participants can get ready for real-time payments.
Since our last update, we’ve made significant progress in collaboration with our regulators and with the industry on a framework outlining how participants can connect to and use the RTR. This new framework outlines member participants’ options to connect directly to the RTR exchange, connect through a connection service provider or leverage a third party exchange. There are also two choices for settlement: member participants can use their own Bank of Canada settlement account and participate as direct clearers, or choose to clear and settle indirectly through a settlement agent. We are working diligently to ensure current and future member participants understand this framework and the choices available to them, and we are very pleased with the growing interest in membership and participation.
Lastly, I’d like to personally invite you to join us at The 2025 Payments Canada SUMMIT, to continue this conversation about the RTR, fraud and the future of payments in Canada and around the world. I’ll be hosting a panel with IBM, CGI, Interac and Deloitte on our approach to RTR delivery, in addition to multiple other sessions at The SUMMIT on the RTR and real-time payments. Join us in Toronto from May 6 to 8, 2025 and use my promo code to save $100 on your registration: SUMM25PCVIP.
