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We propose a framework for designing cognitively accessible payment and banking interfaces through design guidelines, testing and proposed measures to optimize system learnability and user workload. We include, as a case study, the results of testing this framework with users with cognitive disabilities, using a prototype system for voice payments.

At the Bank of Canada, we assessed the life cycle of bank notes to confirm that polymer notes have a smaller environmental footprint than paper notes. Polymer notes have a longer life and then are recycled.

Over the last 30 years, the business mix of banks in Canada has changed significantly. Progress in information-processing technology, legislative changes, and market forces have combined to blur the traditional distinctions between banks and other financial institutions and have allowed banks to offer a much wider range of products and services. In this article, the author reviews the expansion of bank lending to households over this period and their recent movement into personal wealth management. While these trends were facilitated by revisions to legislation, they also reflected the changing needs of the "baby boom" generation, first as home-buyers and, more recently, as middle-aged investors. On the commercial and corporate side, banks reacted to the rapid expansion of securities markets (and to the reduced demand for intermediation by both lenders/depositors and borrowers) by moving into investment banking, after legislative changes opened this business to them in the late 1980s. They also used their expertise in credit assessment and risk management to provide credit guarantees and to act as counterparties and intermediaries in derivatives markets. Notable in this broadening of bank activities has been their more recent entry into the trust, mutual fund, and retail brokerage business. The banks have also made preliminary forays into insurance. The expansion of off-balance-sheet activities has made fee income an increasingly important part of bank earnings. The article also looks at the emerging tools and techniques that will most likely transform the structure of banking in the future.

Deputy Governor Lynn Patterson discusses how the Canadian economy is adjusting to the fall in commodity prices.

Canada’s labour market is tight but beginning to ease. Unemployment will likely rise in turn, but the economy can avoid a recessionary surge given current conditions. Higher unemployment would nonetheless be material, especially for those directly impacted.

How can we develop human capital to its fullest potential, and retain that capital? How can we foster research, innovation, and commercialization in this province? How can we improve Ontario's competitiveness in the global marketplace?

The Bank of Canada and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) today announced plans for a pilot project to use climate-change scenarios to better understand the risks to the financial system related to a transition to a low-carbon economy.

In 2021, the Bank of Canada and the federal government renewed the agreement on Canada’s monetary policy framework. To inform our discussions, the Bank conducted a broad range of public outreach activities between 2019 and 2021. This report summarizes our findings.

Deputy Governor Timothy Lane explains how the Bank of Canada is preparing for a future where Canadians may need a digital currency issued by their central bank.

Systemically important payments systems are systems that, because of the size or the nature of the payments they process, could trigger or transmit serious shocks across domestic or international financial systems if they were insufficiently protected against risk. This article describes the overall framework of core principles developed for the design, operation, and oversight of such payments systems. The article reviews the role of the task force established to develop the core principles and examines the core principles themselves. It also examines the role of central banks in overseeing major payments systems and in applying the core principles to them. The focus is on the Bank of Canada's oversight responsibilities under the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act and on Canada's systemically important payments system—the LVTS.