Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem has designated Visa Inc.’s VisaNet, Mastercard International Inc.’s Global Clearing Management System and Single Message System, and Interac Corp.’s Inter-Member Network as prominent payment systems under the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act, effective October 16, 2023.

Designation brings these systems under formal Bank oversight and requires them to adhere to the Bank's risk management standards. This includes having risk controls in place to ensure continued resilience so they remain safe, viable and effective methods of payment for Canadians.

Millions of Canadian consumers and merchants rely on these retail payment systems to conduct daily transactions. In aggregate, the annual value of Visa and Mastercard credit card transactions and Interac^® debit card transactions represent close to $1 trillion in the Canadian economy. In terms of volume, they collectively account for the majority of point-of-sale transactions.

Given the significant value and volume of daily transactions and how central they are to the retail payments landscape, a material disruption or failure could negatively impact economic activity. It could also lead to a loss of confidence in the overall payments system.

The Bank regularly monitors the evolution of new and existing payment systems to determine whether they warrant oversight because of their potential to cause systemic or payment system risk.

Additional information

• Under the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act, the Bank has formal responsibility for the designation and oversight of clearing and settlement systems that have the potential to pose systemic or payments system risk.
• The Bank oversees systemically important financial market infrastructures and prominent payment systems.
• Prominent payment systems are those that have the potential to pose risks to Canadian economic activity through a disruption or failure that could affect general confidence in the payments system.
• For more information on how the Bank identifies prominent payment systems and how the designation protects them against risk, see the Criteria and Risk Management Standards for Prominent Payment Systems.
• Given their importance, prominent payment systems must adhere to a much broader and more extensive array of criteria compared to payment services providers that will be supervised by the Bank under the Retail Payments Activities Act.
• The Bank’s oversight role does not extend to consumer protection. Victims of fraud should report the incident to their financial institution and alert the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.