Search

Using proprietary FXC Intelligence data on quoted prices for Canadian business-to-business cross-border payments, this note finds that banks charge firms around 2–3.5% of transaction value. Prices vary considerably across banks for the same corridor, transaction amount, and year.

Setting the target rate is the most visible part of monetary policy, but the monetary policy implementation framework is what helps ensure that decision is reflected in financial markets. Through the design and use of its tools and facilities, the Bank of Canada helps keep short-term market interest rates close to the policy target, while preserving incentives for market participants to trade and actively manage liquidity.

Building on our earlier quantum algorithm, this paper shows that reordering queued payments can significantly reduce liquidity needs. The algorithm performs well on smaller payment batches, while traditional algorithms can process larger batches and deliver greater savings. Machine learning also helps identify which payment patterns offer the greatest potential for improvement.

This paper studies how a central bank should design a CBDC when private payment providers collect and monetize transaction data. It characterizes the optimal CBDC’s pricing and data policy, and shows how its effects on private payment use and total data depend on market power and data externalities.

As interest in tokenization grows, so too does the focus on the design of tokenized systems. Different approaches—such as centralized or decentralized systems—could achieve similar outcomes. But the choice of design involves consequential trade-offs that shape how the entire ecosystem evolves.

Tokenization involves representing traditional assets as tokens on a digital platform. This financial innovation has the potential to reshape money and markets, but a common approach for comparing system designs and weighing efficiency gains against risks has yet to be defined. We offer such an approach to improve understanding of this expanding technology and guide policy discussions.

The Standing Liquidity Facility (SLF) is one of the Bank of Canada’s least discussed tools—and one of its most important. Embedded directly in Canada’s high value payment system, Lynx, the SLF operates quietly in the background every business day, ensuring the smooth settlement of payments and reinforcing the implementation of monetary policy.

This paper reviews how central banks are integrating non traditional data and artificial intelligence (AI) into policy analysis and operations. Using the Bank of Canada’s experience, it examines emerging applications, governance challenges, and strategic choices for responsibly scaling AI to enhance insight, efficiency, and institutional resilience.

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to assess central bank digital currency (CBDC) design in a monetary system where traditional banks and “crypto banks” (i.e., banks that issue stablecoins) coexist. We compare tokenized and non-tokenized CBDC, showing that their desirability depends on the reliability of private money provision, the availability of collateral assets and the features of the crypto sector.

DeFi lending with proper governance is operationally viable, but it also faces constraints related to capital efficiency, liquidation risk, and systemic fragility within the crypto ecosystem.