The PayPod

This summer on The PayPod, we're bringing you some of the most popular and best reviewed sessions, from the deep dives and breakout stages at The 2026 SUMMIT. We're calling it The SUMMIT Summer series. This session brings together industry leaders to demystify the Real-Time Rail (RTR) onboarding journey for system participants. The panel will discuss options for connectivity and settleme...

In anticipation of The SUMMIT, Payments Canada's annual event coming to Toronto this May, we're exploring this year's theme: accelerating economic growth.  To do that, we brought together leading experts for a panel on how payments are essential to a thriving economy, enabling new services that deliver value to both businesses and consumers.  Guests : Janet Lalonde, Vice President o...

Billions of dollars are held by Canadian financial institutions and every day, money is sent and received between bank accounts, safely. But how is your money so safe? In this episode of The PayPod, Payments Canada’s CIO is joined by CDIC’s CEO to discuss the role each organization plays in keeping Canadians’ money safe. 

Revisiting a main stage panel discussion from The 2025 SUMMIT, Payments Canada’s Chief Financial Officer Kristina Logue interviews global industry leaders at the forefront of payment transformation as they share the innovations, challenges and milestones of modernizing payment systems at the national level in their respective countries. 

As a follow-up to last year's The SUMMIT main stage panel, Payments Canada's Chief Delivery Officer, Jude Pinto interviews executives from our Real-Time Rail delivery partners, IBM, Interac, CGI and Deloitte on the tremendous progress made on the program since The 2024 SUMMIT, and discusses the upcoming critical milestones that will bring the RTR to go-live. 

Earlier this year, Payments Canada issued a public consultation on policy proposals in relation to membership expansion, with the intention of collecting responses to inform drafting instructions for amendments to Payments Canada by-laws. In this episode of The PayPod, Payments Canada’s Director of Policy discusses why Payments Canada initiated this public consultation, what key themes emerged and...

From the renewed momentum of the Real-Time Rail payment system, to the Retail Payments Activities Act, to open banking legislation and Canadian Payments Act amendments receiving Royal Assent, 2024 was a year of great change for payments in Canada. How will 2025 further advance modern payments for Canadians? 

Payments Canada released its annual Canadian Payment Methods and Trends report in early October, which analyzes retail payment transactions. In 2023, that number was 21.7 billion. The report compares year-over-year payment method trends and also focuses on how payment innovation has evolved Canadian purchasing behaviours and preferences. Wearables, Generative AI (GenAI) and home device and social...

The real-time movement of money enabled by the RTR will give Canadians more control over their finances by allowing payments to be cleared and settled in seconds and providing greater confidence that payments have been finalized. In this episode of The PayPod, Payments Canada and the RTR’s strategic partners discuss collaboration, security, resiliency and how the made in Canada RTR system will cha...

From commercialization opportunities in real-time payments, to harnessing the power of ISO 20022, to the game-changing potential of AI, innovation is everywhere across today’s payment ecosystem, in Canada and around the globe. In this episode of The PayPod, we revisit a main stage discussion from The 2024 SUMMIT, where panelists explored the biggest developments in payments and predicted what we’l...

The High Value Payment System Plus (HVPS+) group, whose mission is to drive best practices and proper usage of payment messaging standards for interoperability and harmonization across high value payment systems, has developed an ISO 20022 Interoperability Charter, which Payments Canada has declared support for. The charter outlines objectives and principles designed to enable evolution and intero...

Payments are becoming increasingly easier, smarter and safer for Canadian businesses and consumers. There are multiple enablers for this change - technology, innovation, consumer demand - but the real reason payments keep getting better and better are the rules and by-laws that form their foundation. How does a payment rule get created? Once it’s created, who governs it and who enforces it? Can a...

Modern payments is an evolution, it will always continue to progress. Join The PayPod’s guests Tracey Black, President and CEO of Payments Canada and her former colleague and mentor, senior financial services executive John Ambrose as they discuss mentorship, how far we’ve come in the evolution of payments and what still needs to be done to reposition Canada as a leader in the global payments ecos...

In the 2023 Fall Economic Statement (FES), the federal government committed to amendments of the Canadian Payments Act (CP Act). This is tremendous news for the Canadian payment ecosystem, because we are now on the path to expanded Payments Canada membership and participation in our national payment systems. Expanded access means more opportunities for regulated entities and more choices for Canad...

In this episode, we take you back to the main stage of The 2023 Payments Canada SUMMIT . Industry experts from across the payment ecosystem share insights and perspectives on some of the most important challenges and opportunities facing the payment industry today. Topics discussed include: how broadening access to Canada’s payment systems will benefit businesses, consumers and the economy; why th...

In December 2022, a diverse coalition of organizations from across the payment industry came together to sign an open letter to the Minister of Finance to make a collective request of the federal government to amend the Canadian Payments Act to broaden Payments Canada’s membership. Broader access to our membership will support the introduction of new participants in Canada's payment system, a...

According to recent research from Payments Canada , there’s an alarming gap in working Canadians' understanding of their paycheque details. In fact, nearly half of respondents say they pay more attention to the weather or their social media channels than their pay information. In this episode of The PayPod, guests discuss the importance of financial literacy in today’s increasingly digital wo...

This episode of The PayPod takes us back to the virtual stage at The 2022 SUMMIT. Moderated by host Cyrielle Chiron, this interactive discussion explores the biggest takeaways from speakers at this year's event and their predictions about what payment trends and topics will be discussed next year at The 2023 SUMMIT, taking place in Toronto from May 3-5. GUESTS:  Lisa Lansdowne-Higgins, SVP, B...

In this episode, host Cyrielle Chiron introduces a pre-recorded webinar from The SUMMIT Series that took place earlier this year. The discussion explores what’s in store for modern payments, including what payment modernization initiatives are coming online in Canada and how they will enable new services that drive value for businesses and consumers. GUESTS:Andrew McFarlane, Chief External Relatio...

The pandemic has changed payments forever; 2025 is happening now. As digital payments have become almost universally accepted, the next gold rush is for customer experience: own the experience, own the value. What can the payments industry learn from the birth of the credit card in the 1950s to create the standard for services in today’s space? What role will traditional institutions have in the i...

When we hear about real-time payments the first thing we think of is speed. But when it comes to the Real-Time-Rail (RTR), faster payments are only part of the story. In this episode, host Cyrielle Chiron is joined by Janet Lalonde, Senior Director, Real-Time-Rail at Payments Canada to discuss the value of real-time payments and how the RTR is more than a payment system, but a platform for innovat...

Jurisdictions around the world are modernizing their high-value payment systems, with ISO 20022 as a key driver. Canada is keeping pace. Lynx, Canada’s new high-value payment system, launched in August 2021. To put this landmark development into a global context, this episode of The PayPod will revisit a discussion from The 2021 SUMMIT that features an overview of the high-value payment system wor...

In this episode, host Cyrielle Chiron introduces a prerecorded webinar from The SUMMIT Series that took place earlier this year. The discussion explores Canada's payments modernization plan and what upcoming changes in payments will mean for individuals, businesses, and the future of payments in Canada - featuring Andrew McFarlane of Payments Canada, Andrew Obee from Ficanex, Derek Vernon fro...

Evolving technology and payments innovation continues to transform the way Canadian consumers and businesses make payments. In this episode, host Cyrielle Chiron, is joined by Kate Frankish, Director of Strategy at Pay. UK to discuss the trends and topics influencing the payments landscape on a global scale in 2021.

Retailer businesses from hardware stores, to clothing stores to restaurants, could not have anticipated lockdowns, nor the restrictions implemented in phase I and II of re-opening due to COVID-19. While there have been many struggles, some retailers managed to quickly pivot by leaning on e-commerce to help them sustain revenues and jobs. While the virus caused chaos in many industries, it is also...