Six Canadian Banks Begin Developing CAD Tokenized Deposits

Canadian banks formed a consortium and began working together on digital money solutions based on the Canadian dollar. The project’s initial focus will be to create a mechanism for issuing and transferring tokenized bank deposits between financial institutions.

The initiative involves 6 banks:

• Bank of Montreal (BMO);
• Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC);
• National Bank of Canada (NBC);
• Royal Bank of Canada (RBC);
• Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank);
• TD Bank Group (TD).

Other Canadian deposit-taking institutions are expected to be allowed to join the project at a later stage. No timeline for expanding participation in the initiative has been announced.

In the first phase, the consortium plans to enable the efficient transfer of tokenized deposits between Canadian financial institutions. The longer-term goal is to integrate the new infrastructure with other systems and initiatives involving digital assets.

The consortium members expect to use tokenization to accelerate settlement and enable programmable payments. At the same time, the project is expected to preserve existing mechanisms for financial stability, banking security, and regulatory oversight. Details of the system’s technical architecture, the timing of a pilot launch, and the transition to commercial operations haven’t yet been disclosed.