Trusted, world-class payments for a prosperous Canada

Payments Canada's pre-budget submission outlines a collaborative approach to modernize national payment infrastructure and boost economic growth.

Payments Canada has submitted its 2026 pre-budget submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. As the national, public-purpose organization responsible for Canada’s critical payment infrastructures – clearing $103 trillion in 2025 alone – our vision is to enable prosperity, productivity and safety for Canada through trusted, world-class payments.

Achieving this vision is a collaborative effort. Payments Canada appreciates working with the federal government, in addition to our members, stakeholders and the broader payment ecosystem, to build a future of payments that benefits all Canadians.

Our submission outlines three primary recommendations for the federal government, focusing on the upcoming launch of Canada's Real-Time Rail (RTR) payment system and the collective fight against fraud and financial crime:

Ongoing support for Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR)

We recommend that the government continue to support the Q4 2026 launch of the RTR as a critical piece of national infrastructure. This support was reflected in the Spring Economic Update, Canada Strong for All, which recognizes the RTR as a cornerstone of the national modernization agenda and a powerful engine for economic growth. The RTR will allow Canadians to send and receive data-rich payments instantly, 24/7, 365 days a year. 

By providing instantaneous digital transfers and adopting the global ISO 20022 messaging standard, the RTR will help small businesses address cash-flow challenges, enable instant wage payments and reduce a costly reliance on paper cheques. Following the launch, we encourage the government to continue engaging with stakeholders to accelerate the development of the RTR’s future capabilities, driving competition and economic growth in Canada.

Modernizing government payments

As Canada's largest payor, the federal government is uniquely positioned to benefit from modernized payment infrastructure. Our second recommendation asks the government to explore the opportunities the RTR offers to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government disbursements. Leveraging the RTR would allow the government to deliver vital benefits and emergency relief funding instantly, while using rich data to automate reconciliation and minimize errors.

Implementing a National Anti-Fraud Strategy

Finally, we recommend that the government implement the National Anti-Fraud Strategy to create a unified, real-time defense against evolving financial crimes. Because fraud schemes frequently exploit gaps between the financial sector, telecommunications providers and digital platforms, a coordinated, multi-sector approach is essential. Enhanced information sharing across these sectors and with regulators is a key enabler of effective fraud prevention. To support this, Canada's RTR is being built with robust fraud mitigation tools to ensure transactions remain safe and secure.

Read our complete submission and learn more about how Payments Canada’s critical national payment infrastructure is positioned to be a world-class catalyst for Canada's economic growth while still prioritizing safety and security.

Read the submission below.

2026 Pre-Budget Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

Recommendations

Recommendation 1

That the government:

• Continue to support the launch of Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) payment system in 2026 as critical national payments infrastructure and a cornerstone of the government’s modernization agenda that will serve as a powerful engine for national productivity and economic growth.
• Continue to engage with all relevant stakeholders following the RTR’s launch to ensure the accelerated development of the RTR’s future capabilities to be a catalyst for competition and empower a more dynamic and inclusive financial sector.

Recommendation 2

That the government undertake an exploration of the opportunities Canada’s RTR can offer to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government payments. 

Recommendation 3

That the government implement the National Anti-Fraud Strategy to provide a unified, real-time defense against evolving financial crimes, including ensuring enhanced information sharing across sectors and with regulators as a key enabler of effective fraud prevention and response.

About Payments Canada

Payments Canada welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the House of Commons pre-budget consultations. Established by the Canadian Payments Act and overseen by the Minister of Finance and the Bank of Canada, Payments Canada is the national, public purpose organization responsible for Canada’s critical payment infrastructures. Payments Canada ensures the secure, efficient and reliable exchange of hundreds of billions of dollars every day. From processing payroll and settling household bills to facilitating complex global commerce, every Canadian, along with businesses, institutions and governments, relies on the national payment "rail" infrastructure to move money safely. In 2025 alone, Payments Canada’s infrastructure cleared and settled $103 trillion, more than $411 billion every business day.

Payments Canada’s vision, to enable prosperity, productivity and safety for Canada through trusted, world-class payments, reflects our role as a strategic partner that facilitates economic growth, social progress and efficiency; delivers nation-building payments system infrastructure; and acts as a steward of the Canadian payment ecosystem writ large.

Canada’s Real-Time Rail

Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) is critical payment infrastructure essential for driving real GDP growth and enabling improvements to Canada’s competitiveness, prosperity and productivity. As announced at The 2026 Payments Canada SUMMIT, the upcoming launch of the RTR in Q4 of this year will mark the beginning of a transformative shift that will have far-reaching benefits for consumers, businesses and the Canadian economy. The RTR is designed to allow Canadians to send and receive data-rich payments instantly, 24/7, 365 days a year. By integrating the global ISO 20022 messaging standard, the RTR will allow payment remittance information to travel seamlessly globally and domestically. As affirmed in Budget 2025 and the Spring Economic Update, the RTR will serve as the cornerstone of a modernized, competitive financial ecosystem, expanding consumer choice, enhancing national prosperity and catalyzing economic growth.

Further, the RTR will support several public policy objectives, including expanded participation in Canadian payment systems, strengthening security, helping combat fraud and financial crime, and enabling efficient digital-first services. It could also see the potential, future capability of empowering consumers through consumer-driven banking.

With instantaneous digital transfers, the RTR will enable affordability and efficiency dividends for Canadians and Canadian businesses. Canada’s RTR will:

• Enable automation reconciliation with data-enriched payment messages, allowing businesses to replace slower and more costly manual back-office processes.
• Reduce reliance on paper cheques, which are 5-10 times more costly to produce and process for businesses and governments.
• Help address critical liquidity and cash-flow challenges for small businesses. The immediate availability of funds allows for more precise budget planning and can help small businesses move away from high-interest (7-10 per cent) lines of credit for float while waiting for accounts receivables sent by cheques or other payment methods to clear.
• Support the fast and immediate payment of rent and bills, helping Canadians and small businesses avoid fees and penalties when today's cheques can take up to eight days to clear and settle.
• Provide a lower-cost and much simpler payment alternative compared to domestic wire transfers and bank drafts.
• Help consumers and businesses avoid cheque cashing services fees (e.g., three per cent) and NSF or overdraft fees (e.g., 10 dollars) when pre-authorized debits mismatch cheque holds releases.
• Enable instant wage payment immediately after the completion of work, for gig workers, as an example.
• Support the faster availability of funds from loans, insurance payouts and other payments.
• Bring added safety with fraud mitigation requirements, especially important given that RTR payments will be settled immediately.

According to a 2023 C.D. Howe Institute report, the RTR could potentially add up to $7 billion to the Canadian economy within its first five years of operation just from the displacement of cheques and the reduction of float in the system, with the projected cost savings from just cheque displacement alone being $726.7 million in year five. Further analysis is underway to understand the benefits realized by enabling these use cases as well as additional use cases that will come when added functionality, such as request-to-pay, is enabled.

As an example, the system will enable small businesses through automated "just-in-time" supplier payments and consumers through “me-to-me” payments, offering them immediate access to their own funds when sent across different institutions. When small businesses wait for funds to settle, when corporations struggle with manual reconciliation due to a lack of structured payment data, and when individuals wait for a cheque or payment to clear to access funds or for a bill to be considered paid, the entire economic chain those funds are meant to enable slows down. Other potential use cases include instant insurance and government disbursements and vehicle deposit payments.  

Additional use cases, such as those involving higher value purchases like real estate transactions, cross-border payments, request-to-pay and debit-pull transactions, may also emerge if additional functionality and capabilities are enabled. The use cases that emerge will ultimately enable a more efficient, competitive and accessible payment ecosystem for all Canadians.

Recommendations:

• That the government continues to support the launch of Canada’s RTR payment system in 2026 as critical national payments infrastructure and a cornerstone of the government’s modernization agenda that will serve as a powerful engine for national productivity and economic growth.
• That the government continues to engage with all relevant stakeholders following the RTR’s launch to ensure the accelerated development of the RTR’s future capabilities to be a catalyst for competition and empower a more dynamic and inclusive financial sector.

Modernizing government payments

The federal government is advancing a number of whole-of-government modernization and efficiency initiatives to meet the evolving service expectations of Canadians. By replacing inefficient, fragmented legacy systems and processes with streamlined, digital-enabled systems and applications, the government can transform some operations to be more efficient, cost-effective and responsive to the needs and expectations of Canadians. As Canada’s largest payor, the federal government is in a unique position to assess opportunities to modernize its payment disbursements, a primary touchpoint for millions of citizens and businesses. Key opportunities for modernization include:

• Reducing reliance on cheques: Cheques cost between $15–$25 per transaction to process, significantly more than electronic alternatives, while their limited remittance data capacity hinders automation and inflates overhead. Furthermore, the Canada Revenue Agency currently holds more than 10 million uncashed cheques totaling $1.9 billion; if a portion of these cheques were moved to an alternate form of payment, these sums could be supporting the financial well-being of Canadians and working capital in the economy.
• Improving service delivery: Canadians expect government services to match the speed and convenience they experience in their daily digital lives. Recent research indicates that Canadians find real-time payments appealing, citing receiving a government payment as their top reason (Canadian Payment Methods and Trends Report 2025).
• Combating and mitigating fraud: As fraudsters adopt increasingly sophisticated technology, legacy systems face mounting pressure. Canada’s RTR provides a far more resilient defense, leveraging tools like confirmation of payee and real-time monitoring of ecosystem-wide signals.
• Benefiting from rich data: RTR payments using the ISO 20022 standard transform payments into powerful vectors of information. By allowing detailed data to travel with each transaction, both the government and recipients can benefit from "straight-through processing." This enables reconciliation automation, minimizing errors and reducing the administrative burden of payment inquiries.

The RTR has the potential to support government payments, helping Canadians receive vital benefits with greater speed and certainty. This is particularly transformative for emergency relief payments, where the government could deliver funding instantly to those in need. 

Recommendation:

• That the government undertake an exploration of the opportunities Canada’s RTR can offer to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government payments. 

National Anti-Fraud Strategy

Payments Canada supports the government’s commitment to develop a whole-of-government National Anti-Fraud Strategy, including taking a multi-sector approach that recognizes the interconnected roles of the financial sector, telecommunications providers and digital platforms. Fraud schemes frequently span these sectors, with fraudsters exploiting gaps between them to deceive individuals and facilitate the illicit movement of funds. Such an approach would provide a strong foundation for addressing these risks. Focusing on prevention, detection, disruption and response reflects the full lifecycle of fraud and supports a more coordinated approach across sectors. Payments Canada is a member of the Canadian Anti-Scam Coalition. We have also submitted recommendations to the public consultation on the National Anti-Fraud Strategy.

Canada’s RTR is being built with required fraud mitigation capabilities that will offer an enhanced level of defence against increasingly sophisticated threats. The capabilities include Confirmation of Payee, a National Risk List, data and analytics and reporting. As noted above, the RTR is built to enable payment messages complying with ISO 20022 international data standards. This will support enhanced transparency and traceability by enabling critical payment data to travel with each and every transaction. This feature will play a key role in supporting public policy objectives to combat fraud and financial crimes.

Within a clear and effective data governance framework, enhanced information sharing across sectors and with regulators can be a key enabler of effective fraud prevention and response. Timely and targeted sharing of fraud-related information can improve the ability of organizations to identify emerging threats and take action to prevent further harm.

Recommendation:

• That the government implement the National Anti-Fraud Strategy to provide a unified, real-time defense against evolving financial crimes, including ensuring enhanced information sharing across sectors and with regulators as a key enabler of effective fraud prevention and response.

For further information or to discuss these recommendations, please contact Payments Canada at info@payments.ca or visit Payments Canada’s website.