Canada's Big Six Banks Team Up for Tokenized Deposit Push

Six of Canada's largest banks - Bank of Montreal (BMO), CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, and TD Bank Group - have announced a joint effort to explore a Canadian-dollar tokenized deposit system.

The initiative aims to enable faster, programmable digital money with regulatory oversight and potential connectivity to broader crypto and DeFi initiatives. According to the banks, this project reflects their shared view that Canada's payments infrastructure must continue to be competitive and secure as digital money evolves globally.

The first phase of the project will focus on moving tokenized deposits across Canadian financial institutions rather than issuing a consumer-facing token. The announcement follows guidance from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) on September 10, which clarified that tokenized deposits carry the same legal status as traditional deposits.