TORONTO \u2014 Canada\u2019s big banks are exploring the development of Canadian dollar-based digital money, starting with a tokenized deposits initiative.<\/p>\n
Tokenized deposits are traditional bank deposits recorded on a decentralized database or distributed ledger, such as a blockchain. The plan seeks to deliver faster, more efficient and programmable payments to Canadian customers while preserving safety, stability and effective regulatory oversight. <\/p>\n
It means Canadian dollars could be converted into tokens on blockchain for easier transfers, said Claire C\u00e9l\u00e9rier, Canada Research Chair in household finance at the University of Toronto\u2019s Rotman School of Management. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding is that the six banks will share the same blockchain, and so it implies that transactions can be made instantaneously across wallets with tokens,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The tokens would be issued by commercial banks and from a legal perspective, depositors can treat them the same as traditional bank deposits.<\/p>\n
Bank of Montreal<\/a>, CIBC<\/a>, National Bank<\/a>, Royal Bank<\/a>, Scotiabank<\/a> and TD Bank<\/a> are taking a collaborative approach to the project.<\/p>\n C\u00e9l\u00e9rier said the potential capabilities would be of particular benefit to large companies or institutional investors, allowing them to complete \u201cmore sophisticated transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I expect is that these tokenized dollars will be mostly used by large companies and so on who have accounts across these Canadian banks, and it will be used to move large amounts of money,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Another potential benefit, C\u00e9l\u00e9rier said, is that it could increase the efficiency of international transfers.<\/p>\n The banks say the first phase aims to move tokenized deposits between Canadian financial institutions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really exploratory now. I think what they\u2019re saying is that they\u2019re willing to work together to develop the technology,\u201d C\u00e9l\u00e9rier said. <\/p>\n —<\/p>\n This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Canada\u2019s big banks are exploring the development of Canadian dollar-based digital money, starting with a tokenized…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4498,45,49,48,133],"class_list":["post-905593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-banks","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}