Proposed Criteria and Risk-Management Standards for Prominent Payment Systems

A consultation paper by the Bank of Canada

In December 2014, the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act was amended to give the Bank of Canada responsibility for identifying and overseeing payments systems that have the potential to pose payments system risk (these will be referred to as prominent payment systems). This responsibility will be in addition to its current legislative responsibility to oversee payment systems that pose systemic risk. This new role for the Bank of Canada results from a governance review of payments systems that was undertaken by the Department of Finance.1

To exercise this new responsibility, the Bank is proposing criteria that will serve as the basis for identifying such systems. In addition, the Bank is proposing risk-management standards that would guide operators of prominent payment systems in the mitigation of payments system risk.

Members of the public are invited to submit their comments on these proposed criteria and risk-management standards to the Bank. Comments on the draft criteria and risk-management standards can be emailed to the Bank of Canada at and must be received by 14 August 2015.

The Bank will finalize, publish and implement the criteria and risk-management standards after the public consultation has been completed.

For further information on the consultation, please contact:

Assistant Chief
Payment System Oversight Division
613 782-7643

Bank of Canada
613 782-8782