Canada’s top six financial institutions are collaboratively investigating a Canadian-dollar tokenized deposit network with the goal of maintaining the nation’s payment network “secure and competitive.”
Through a shared statement published on Tuesday, the lenders explained that the initial stage of the endeavor focuses on transferring tokenized deposits smoothly between banking firms.
“The objective is to provide Canadian users with quicker, highly efficient, and programmable transactions while maintaining security, financial stability, and robust regulatory compliance,” the announcement noted.
The involved institutions consist of the Bank of Montreal, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the National Bank of Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), The Bank of Nova Scotia, alongside TD Bank Group. The project could potentially incorporate additional deposit-accepting entities at a “suitable moment,” the release further stated.
This undertaking comes after regulatory guidance issued by Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), which announced earlier in the month that tokenized deposits are “legally identical to conventional deposits.”
“The foundational technology behind a financial instrument or offering does not dictate its legal status,” according to the OSFI.
This new collaborative venture also expands upon past tokenization experiments within Canada. Back in March, the Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, RBC, alongside TD Bank reported finishing a tokenization trial named Project Samara, designed to test the effectiveness of distributed ledger technology in enhancing the issuance and clearing of sovereign bonds.
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/business/2026-09-23-canada-banks-tokenized-deposit-system-416129.
