Canada just did something that would have sounded like science fiction five years ago: it issued, traded, and settled a $100 million bond on a blockchain, in real time, using digital central bank money. And the most remarkable part? It worked.
The most important financial technology announcements rarely sound exciting at first. "Payments infrastructure partnership" isn't exactly going to trend on social media. But strip away the press release language and what Peoples Group and Fiserv just announced is one of the more consequential infrastructure moves in Canadian fintech in recent memory.
Canada's banking sector just received a wake-up call, and it came from the regulator.
OSFI just told Canada's biggest banks they have $1 trillion in unused lending capacity. That's enough to fund every SME dream, startup pitch, and business expansion plan in the country several times over. So why does your local entrepreneur still hear "no" more often than "yes"?
Tiff Macklem just delivered the most important speech you'll read all year, and if you're running financial operations in Canada, you should probably pay attention.