INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIGEST

Canada’s iGaming sector is undergoing a significant upgrade, thanks in part to Interac.

Canada’s payment infrastructure is undergoing a major transformation with Interac’s rollout of real-time transaction capabilities under the Real-Time Rail (RTR) initiative.

As Ontario’s financial institutions adopt this new architecture, instant fund settlement is becoming a reality for both consumers and businesses. This shift is especially crucial for industries that rely on rapid payment cycles, such as e-commerce and digital entertainment. By granting immediate access to funds, Interac’s upgrade is redefining how online transactions are processed and experienced.

Interac’s Real-Time Rail Initiative

Led by Payments Canada, Interac’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) is a sweeping modernization of the country’s legacy payment systems. Designed to enable secure, instantaneous, and data-rich payments, RTR ensures 24/7/365 real-time availability with guaranteed finality, immediate fund settlement, and ISO 20022 messaging.

This marks a departure from the batch-based processing of the past, ushering in an era of event-driven, real-time financial communication. Interac, chosen by Payments Canada to serve as the exchange solution provider, is building the system’s backbone to manage over 10,000 transactions per second, scalable for future demand.

Ontario’s Financial Institutions Lead the Way

Ontario’s leading banks—TD, RBC, Scotiabank, CIBC, and Desjardins—are piloting RTR protocols and integrating them into their core systems. But the changes aren’t just under the hood. These institutions are also updating mobile apps, digital wallets, and online banking platforms to enable real-time payment capabilities.

Customer-facing upgrades now include instant transaction notifications and enhanced risk assessment engines to handle the flood of data that accompanies real-time payments.

A New Standard for E-Commerce

RTR is poised to transform e-commerce in Ontario. Platforms like Shopify, Lightspeed, and Square are leveraging the system to offer real-time disbursements and refunds, cutting wait times from days to seconds.

For merchants, this means improved liquidity; for customers, smoother, faster experiences. Thanks to RTR-enabled APIs, Ontario-based vendors can now transfer funds directly to their bank accounts—an essential feature for small businesses that rely on tight cash flow.

iGaming and the Rise of Instant Withdrawals

Among the biggest winners of this payments evolution is Ontario’s iGaming sector. As Interac’s infrastructure expands, instant withdrawals casinos in Ontario are benefiting, shrinking the delay between winning and cashing out.

With gameplay and payments moving at the same speed, platforms can offer deposit confirmations and withdrawals in under 30 seconds. This not only boosts user engagement but also reduces support requests and transactional friction.

Streaming Services and On-Demand Activation

Subscription services like Netflix Canada, Crave, and DAZN are also tapping into RTR. With real-time payment confirmation, account activations are immediate, sidestepping delays caused by traditional bank hold times.

This responsiveness is key for promotional campaigns or last-minute access to live events. Real-time payments could even unlock per-minute or per-episode pricing models, offering consumers greater control while broadening monetization strategies for platforms.

Beyond Retail and Gaming: Business Use Cases Multiply

RTR is changing how Ontario businesses manage payroll and operations. Gig economy platforms, such as Uber, DoorDash, and SkipTheDishes, now offer end-of-shift earnings that are deposited within minutes.

Insurance firms are also embracing RTR for faster and more efficient claims processing. Health and auto insurance payouts that once took days or weeks now arrive in real time. For startups and vendors in Ontario’s tech sector, invoices are cleared minutes after approval, tightening payment cycles and boosting trust.

Empowering Consumers with Real-Time Control

For everyday Ontarians, RTR provides real-time peer-to-peer (P2P) payments with full transparency and traceability. Transfers between Interac-linked accounts are confirmed in under five seconds.

This speed benefits personal finance, enabling on-the-dot bill payments, eliminating late fees, and powering tools for automated saving and real-time budgeting. Consumers can now manage daily cash flows with far greater precision.

Security by Design

Security remains a central component of RTR’s design. With ISO 20022 messaging, transaction metadata—like invoice numbers, payer IDs, and purpose codes—helps prevent fraud and detect anomalies.

RTR systems are closely monitored by the Bank of Canada and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). Banks are deploying AI-driven fraud analytics that scan transactions in milliseconds, thereby raising confidence in the integrity of each transfer.

Payment Processors and API Acceleration

Processors like Moneris, Payfirma, and Helcim are helping businesses adopt RTR quickly through white-labeled APIs that support real-time orchestration, routing, and auditing.

These APIs are powering real-time reconciliation engines that auto-balance ledgers, minimizing accounting errors and optimizing cash flow. Thanks to improved standardization, what used to take months to integrate now takes weeks.

Data-Rich Transactions for a Smarter Economy

Every RTR payment carries contextual data via ISO 20022 tags. This enables businesses and financial institutions to extract detailed insights and feed them into analytics platforms such as Tableau, Power BI, or proprietary models.

For e-commerce platforms, it means better conversion tracking, refund analysis, and churn forecasting. For banks, it supports hyper-personalized product offerings, real-time risk modeling, and smarter lending decisions.

Canada’s Real-Time Future

While Ontario leads the rollout of the RTR, the national picture is rapidly taking shape. Payments Canada expects all major financial institutions across the country to be connected by 2026.

Ontario’s early adoption is shaping the roadmap for the rest of Canada. Feedback from the province is informing API documentation, customer service protocols, and regulatory standards. Upcoming RTR upgrades will include features such as request-to-pay (R2P), split payments, and real-time recurring debits—pushing Canada’s payment infrastructure toward a faster, more fluid future.