Bank of Canada: Digital Dollar and Retail Payments

The Bank of Canada appears in crypto discussions for two separate reasons. The first is the idea of a digital dollar, a form of money that a central bank itself would issue to the public. The second is the supervision of retail payments, which covers the companies that move money for ordinary users. These are different subjects with different legal footing, and mixing them up leads to confusion. A digital dollar would be a public currency decision. Payment supervision is a registration regime for providers. This page takes them one at a time, uses the Bank's own wording where possible, and separates what the Bank has said from what is only proposed or left open. Where the Bank is silent, this page says so and does not fill the gap.

Start with the digital dollar. A central bank digital currency, often shortened to CBDC, would be a digital form of a country's money issued directly by its central bank. The Bank of Canada says it is scaling down work on a retail central bank digital currency. It also says that any decision to issue one rests with elected representatives, not with the Bank alone. That means the Bank is not the final decision-maker on whether such a currency exists. A reader should therefore treat any claim that a Canadian digital dollar is about to arrive as something to check against the Bank's current digital dollar page, which is where the position is set out.

The second subject is retail payments. Under the Retail Payment Activities Act, a payment service provider that performs retail payment activities must register with the Bank. According to the Bank, this includes a provider without a Canadian place of business that serves end users in Canada. The Bank also says that since September 8, 2025 a provider must be registered before performing those activities. CHECK DATE: the Bank's published frequently asked questions and registry pages are the place to confirm the current position. The Bank keeps a public registry of providers, so a reader can look up a name instead of relying on what a company says about itself.

Take a made-up reader named Naomi. She reads that the Bank of Canada is working on a digital dollar and wonders whether the app on her phone is part of it. She visits the Bank's digital dollar page and learns that work on a retail version is being scaled down, and that issuing one is a decision for elected representatives. Next, she sees that a payment app she uses says it is registered. She opens the Bank's registry and searches for the company by name. Later she reads the Bank's note that registration is not endorsement, so she treats the result as a fact about registration only, not a judgment about the app.

Several misunderstandings are common. One is to treat a registration as a seal of approval. The Bank does not endorse or license registered payment service providers, so appearing on the registry says one thing and no more. Another is to assume that every crypto product is covered by the Bank's criteria. The Bank's criteria guidance has no substantive position on crypto-assets and no stablecoin-specific guidance. A third is to assume that stablecoin oversight reaches the trading venues. The Bank's stablecoin page says the stablecoin framework does not regulate trading on exchanges or platforms. Each of these gaps is stated by the Bank itself, so they are not rumours. They are limits on what the published guidance covers, and a reader should not fill them with guesses about what the Bank might think or intend.

To read more, use the Bank of Canada pages listed below, because they are the primary record and they are updated as positions change. This page cannot say whether a particular provider must register, whether a product falls inside the Retail Payment Activities Act, or what a future decision on a digital dollar will be. Those questions belong to the Bank, to elected representatives and, where needed, to a qualified professional who can read the facts of a specific case. Dates and criteria change, so confirm each point on the current page. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice. It is general education about what one public institution has said on two linked topics.

• The Bank of Canada says it is scaling down work on a retail digital dollar, and any decision to issue one rests with elected representatives
• A registered payment provider is not endorsed or licensed by the Bank, so registration is a fact, not a seal of approval
• The Bank's guidance has no stablecoin-specific position, and its stablecoin framework does not regulate trading on exchanges or platforms