If 2024 was the warm-up, 2025 was the sprint. Canada’s payments landscape hit a tipping point: digital wallets moved from convenience to habit, prepaid cards found serious footing in both consumer and B2B flows, AI became the engine behind fraud defense, and real-time rails dominated boardroom agendas. Layer in RPAA supervision and open banking inching forward, and the signal is clear—speed and intelligence aren’t “nice to have” anymore.
This year-in-review cuts through the noise with a Canadian lens. We’ll unpack the five shifts that mattered most, plus take a look at the currents shaping 2026. This is all about what changed, why it matters, and where to focus next in the payments landscape.
Real-time payments aren’t new to Canada—Interac e-Transfer® has been moving money instantly between individuals and small businesses for years. What’s changed in 2025 is how it’s being used. Once seen mainly as a peer-to-peer tool for splitting bills or paying rent, e-Transfer has become a serious contender for business transactions, offering a faster, lower-cost alternative to credit cards and wire payments. With lower fraud and chargeback risk, more organizations are turning to it for online sales, contractor payments, and supplier disbursements.
But this year was also about what comes next. Canada’s long-anticipated Real-Time Rail (RTR) expected to launch in 2026, gained serious momentum this year. The RTR will expand those capabilities—raising transaction limits, increasing interoperability, and extending real-time payments across a wider range of use cases. Once live, RTR will enable 24/7/365 instant transfers between consumers, businesses, and governments, finally bringing large-scale, real-time settlement to the Canadian market.
For Canadian businesses, the benefits are clear: improved cash flow, faster supplier payments, and happier customers and employees. Imagine being able to pay gig workers, settle insurance claims, or issue refunds instantly—no more batch processing or waiting for bank hours.
At the same time, instant payments introduce new challenges. Faster money movement also means faster risk—shorter windows for fraud detection and compliance checks. That’s why 2025 saw increased investment in real-time monitoring and AI-driven risk management, as providers prepared for RTR’s rollout. Globally, we’ve already seen how systems like FedNow in the U.S. and Faster Payments in the U.K. have raised the bar for both efficiency and security.
Was there any industry that Artificial Intelligence didn’t disrupt in 2025? What started as an efficiency tool has become the backbone of how payment providers detect fraud, manage compliance, and deliver faster, safer transactions.
With payment volumes climbing and fraud tactics evolving, AI now plays a decisive role in monitoring transactions in real time, identifying patterns that static rules can’t catch. Major players like RBC, Mastercard, and HSBC reported significant gains in fraud detection accuracy and fewer false positives, proving that AI can make payments both faster and smarter.
Beyond fraud prevention, AI is helping businesses automate onboarding, streamline reconciliation, and improve customer experiences without adding complexity. In a real-time payments world, AI is the infrastructure that keeps trust, speed, and security in balance.
Once seen as a convenience, digital wallets officially became financial infrastructure in 2025. Nearly 70% of Gen Z Canadians now use mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, and most say they’d rather leave their physical wallet at home. That behaviour shift has transformed wallets from optional add-ons into essential payment touchpoints.
For businesses, digital wallets represent more than just faster checkout—they’re a new way to deepen engagement. By issuing branded wallets, organizations can keep funds circulating within their own ecosystems, turning payouts, refunds, or loyalty rewards into ongoing relationships instead of one-time transactions. Leading brands like Amazon, Uber, and Starbucks are already showing what this looks like in practice.
In Canada, this trend is accelerating alongside the rise of virtual cards and embedded finance. As digital wallets evolve to hold funds, store identity credentials, and integrate loyalty or budgeting tools, they’re becoming the front door to the entire customer relationship, and a competitive differentiator for any business that depends on payments.
Prepaid cards became one of 2025’s biggest growth stories. Once limited to gift cards, they’re now powering everything from payroll and gig worker payouts to corporate incentives and digital banking alternatives. In Canada alone, total loads on prepaid accounts grew from $11.4 billion in 2023 to a projected $17.4 billion by 2028, with strong momentum across both consumer and B2B markets.
The appeal is clear. Prepaid cards combine the speed and security of digital payments with the control of set spending limits. For businesses, they simplify disbursements and reduce administrative overhead, while for consumers, they offer convenience, transparency, and a sense of safety when shopping online. Virtual prepaid cards in particular are reshaping B2B transactions, enabling instant supplier payments and automated reconciliation.
In 2025, prepaid cemented its role as a flexible, digital-first payment rail bridging traditional finance and modern fintech. As organizations look for faster, more secure ways to move money—whether for payroll, supplier payments, or customer incentives—prepaid programs are proving to be one of the most adaptable tools in the payments mix.
After years of anticipation, 2025 finally brought hints of progress toward open banking in Canada. The federal government reaffirmed its commitment to launching a regulated framework, and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) began laying the groundwork for accreditation, security standards, and a trusted fintech registry. It’s a cautious rollout, but one that’s starting to give industry players confidence that real change is coming.
Globally, countries like the U.K., Australia, and Singapore continued to show the benefits of open banking done right—greater transparency, faster innovation, and better consumer control over financial data. In contrast, Canada’s pace remains deliberate, reflecting both its highly concentrated banking sector and a strong emphasis on security and consumer protection.
For Canadian fintechs and financial institutions, 2025 was a year to prepare: building partnerships, upgrading infrastructure, and aligning data governance with emerging standards. When the remaining legislation lands, those who’ve already invested in readiness will be best positioned to capitalize on new pay-by-bank models and a more open, connected financial ecosystem.
The biggest undercurrent of 2025 was integration. Payments are becoming invisible, built directly into the apps and platforms where people already live, work, and shop. From ride-share payouts to marketplace disbursements and subscription renewals, embedded finance has made paying and getting paid part of the experience itself.
At the same time, the rise of cross-border e-commerce has pushed businesses to think globally. The demand for multi-currency settlements, real-time FX, and interoperable payment rails has never been higher, with fintechs stepping in to close the gaps traditional banks have left open. For Canadian firms eyeing international growth, the convergence of embedded and cross-border finance offers both opportunity and complexity.
As these trends take hold, payments are becoming less about individual products and more about how everything connects. The businesses that stand out in 2026 will be the ones that build flexible systems that fit seamlessly wherever money needs to move.
If 2025 was the year payments got smarter, 2026 will be the year they get simpler. Real-time rails will finally go live (fingers crossed), AI will move from the background to the centre of compliance and operations, and digital wallets, prepaid programs and other flexible payment trends will keep blurring the line between banking and everyday life.
What’s clear is that the next phase of innovation won’t come from new technology alone—it’ll come from how we connect it. From real-time to open banking, the winners will be those who build trust, flexibility, and interoperability into every transaction.
Keep on top of key trends in 2026 by following DC Payments on social media and watching for new insights on our Resource Hub.