Six Canadian banks announced joint exploration of tokenized deposits on September 22, 2026, following OSFI's clarification that such deposits remain legally equivalent to traditional accounts.

Six major Canadian banks announced on September 22, 2026, that they are jointly exploring Canadian dollar tokenized deposits, starting with payments between their own institutions, according to a statement from National Bank of Canada. The participating institutions are BMO, CIBC, National Bank, RBC, Scotiabank and TD.

The announcement followed a September 10, 2026, statement by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) clarifying that tokenized deposits are not legally distinct from traditional deposits under Canada's technology-neutral regulatory framework. A tokenized deposit remains a deposit on a bank's balance sheet, subject to existing oversight.

Canadian banks are participating in multiple tokenized money initiatives. BMO, CIBC and Scotiabank joined the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agorá after the September 22 domestic announcement, joining TD Bank N.A., which was already a participant, according to the source material attributed to Vinay Iyer of Fireblocks, published October 13, 2026. The Bank of Canada has been a member of Project Agorá since May 2026, according to the central bank.

Project Agorá tests tokenized central bank reserves and tokenized commercial bank deposits on a shared platform. In July 2026 real-value testing, 28 institutions and central banks completed live transactions with an average time from initiation to settlement of approximately 80 seconds, according to the Fireblocks source material.

The six-bank Canadian initiative has not yet named a platform, vendor or timeline, according to the source material.

Source link