Canada's Big Six Banks Plan Tokenised CAD Deposit System for Interbank Payments
Canada’s Big Six Banks Plan Tokenised CAD Deposit System for Interbank Payments #
Canada’s six largest banks have announced a joint project to develop a Canadian-dollar tokenised deposit system for interbank settlements.
Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Bank Group announced the collaboration Tuesday, September 22, in a joint press release. The banks said they expect additional deposit-taking institutions to join as the project develops.
The first phase will focus on transferring tokenised deposits among the six participating banks, with the intent of upgrading domestic interbank payment rails before expanding to broader digital-asset ecosystems. The shared infrastructure could eventually support faster, programmable, around-the-clock payments while keeping customer funds within the regulated banking system.
Tokenised deposits differ from stablecoins. Stablecoins are typically issued as separate digital tokens backed by cash or government securities held in reserve. A tokenised deposit remains a liability on the issuing bank’s balance sheet, the same legal claim a customer holds on a conventional account, represented and transferred via distributed-ledger technology.
The project has regulatory support. Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions recently clarified that tokenised deposits are not legally distinct from traditional deposits, giving regulated banks a clearer basis to pursue blockchain-based deposit systems. OSFI also directed federally regulated institutions to consult their lead supervisors before introducing novel financial products or services.
The initiative builds on earlier work in Canadian digital financial infrastructure. In March, the Bank of Canada, RBC, TD Bank and Export Development Canada completed Project Samara, a pilot that issued, traded and settled a C$100 million bond on a distributed ledger using tokenised wholesale Canadian dollars. The experiment confirmed the feasibility of atomic on-chain settlement but also identified challenges around governance, liquidity and legal alignment.
Similar efforts are underway elsewhere. In the United States, regional lenders are assembling a shared tokenised-deposit network, while JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform already processes more than $7 billion in average daily volume. Swift has also begun testing tokenised deposits for 24/7 cross-border payments with banks across six continents. The Bank of Canada is separately participating in Project Agorá, the Bank for International Settlements initiative examining how tokenised commercial-bank deposits and central-bank reserves could together improve the efficiency of wholesale cross-border payments.
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