Canada's Six Biggest Banks Team Up on a Shared Digital-Dollar Network
Canada’s six largest banks—RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, CIBC, and National Bank—are jointly exploring a Canadian-dollar tokenized deposit system. The first phase would let the banks move deposits between themselves on a shared digital ledger, with no consumer wallets involved. Tokenized deposits are ordinary bank deposits represented digitally, not cryptocurrency or a central bank digital currency. The goal is faster, always-on settlement with programmable payments, while preserving existing commercial-bank safeguards. The system may later expand to other deposit-taking institutions, but no launch date is set. This is separate from Canada’s CBDC debate, where a 2023 Bank of Canada consultation found most respondents would not use a digital Canadian dollar and many emphasized privacy and cash access. Canada previously shut down its MintChip digital-cash pilot. The move comes as U.S. banks are building similar tokenized deposit networks, alongside stablecoin initiatives, to defend deposit funding and modernize payments.
