For the first time in its history, Payments Canada has admitted non-bank financial technology companies as members. If that sentence doesn’t make you sit up a little straighter, consider this: the organization processes more than $411 billion every single business day, and it just opened its doors to companies that move faster, build leaner, and think differently about how money should work.
When Canada's banking regulator starts publishing a bulletin called "The Ledger" with its own ISSN number, you know things are getting serious. OSFI's first issue, released January 19, 2026, marks the official starting gun for the implementation phase of the Data Collection Modernization initiative. And while "data collection modernization" ranks somewhere between "drainage infrastructure" and "HVAC maintenance" on the excitement scale, the implications for Canadian banking are genuinely transformative.
After years of consultation fatigue and regulatory hesitation, Canada's federal government unveiled Budget 2025 on November 4, accompanied by fintech announcements that actually move the needle. If you're operating in the Canadian financial services sector and haven't fully grasped what just happened, buckle up.