Canada – Ontario

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

Canada federal payments framework is undergoing its most significant restructuring since the Retail Payments Activities Act came into force. Bill C-15 received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, repealing the original Consumer-Driven Banking Act, enacted as Part 1 in June 2024, and enacting a rebuilt Consumer-Driven Banking Act. The rebuilt Act shifts oversight of open banking from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to the Bank of Canada, consolidating open-banking supervision with the Bank of Canada existing role as supervisor of registered payment service providers under the Retail Payments Activities Act. This is a market-access development in the fullest sense: it determines which institution sets and enforces the accreditation criteria that govern who may participate in the open-banking ecosystem, bank and non-bank alike.

The practical detail of that market-access regime is now being defined through implementing regulations. Finance Canada published draft Consumer-Driven Banking Regulations in Canada Gazette Part I on June 27, 2026, opening a 60-day comment period. The draft regulations span six areas: accreditation, security, screening, authentication and consent, reporting, and technical standards. Together these define the operational bar that both bank participants and non-bank payment service providers or electronic money-style entrants will need to clear to be accredited under the rebuilt framework. The draft regulations quoted text describes the aim as introducing a secure framework overseen by the Bank of Canada, positioning the central bank as both prudential supervisor and open-banking market-access gatekeeper.

For market participants operating in or toward Ontario specifically, this federal restructuring is the entirety of the relevant regulatory picture: Ontario carries no independent provincial payments-licensing lever, so its payments-regulatory exposure runs entirely through federal Retail Payments Activities Act, Consumer-Driven Banking Act, and, prospectively, Stablecoin Act developments. The consolidation of open-banking oversight into the Bank of Canada therefore has a more direct and immediate effect on Ontario-facing institutions than it would in a jurisdiction with a parallel provincial licensing regime capable of absorbing or offsetting federal change.

The distinction between bank and non-bank participants is explicit in how this framework is being built: the draft regulations accreditation criteria apply across both categories, meaning both federally regulated banks and non-bank payment service providers registered under the Retail Payments Activities Act face the same forthcoming accreditation bar for open-banking market access, rather than a bifurcated standard. This is a notable design choice, since it avoids creating a structural incumbency advantage for banks already holding federal charters, at least on paper, pending the finalized detail of the accreditation criteria themselves.

Outlook

The 60-day comment period on the draft Consumer-Driven Banking Regulations closes August 26, 2026. That closure is the concrete near-term event to track, since it directly precedes finalization of the accreditation, security, and technical-standards criteria needed to bring the rebuilt Consumer-Driven Banking Act into force. Until finalization, prospective accredited participants, including non-bank entrants, are operating against draft rather than settled criteria, and the exact commencement timeline for the rebuilt Act beyond this consultation stage has not been confirmed this cycle.