The first stage is to replace the wholesale system, now over 20 years old, which manages transfers between major financial institutions and through which the Bank of Canada operates. Most of the work on the new wholesale system should be completed in 2020. Now, the wholesale system handles most of the dollar value of payments.
But there are thousands of times more retail transactions on any given day. So, modernizing the retail payments system is a top priority. Two to three years from now, you will be able to execute transactions between yourselves in real time—a major advance over today’s lags. These prospects have the Bank thinking hard about the future of money, especially cash.