Canada’s federal banking watchdog has given financial institutions clearer room to experiment with deposits recorded on digital ledgers. On September 10, 2026, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions published a short statement confirming that a deposit does not become a new legal product merely because it is represented as a token or transferred through distributed-ledger technology.
OSFI framed the announcement as support for innovation and competition, provided the financial system stays strong and resilient.
The regulator noted that banks and other federally regulated firms, along with their vendors, have already begun designing digitally represented deposits.
Officials said that particular use case needed extra clarity on whether such products fall within existing powers under federal financial-institution statutes.
The core message is technology-neutral.
OSFI looks at the economic and legal substance of a product, not the rails used to issue or move it.
In that view, tokenized deposits are not a separate class of liability from ordinary bank deposits.
A customer’s claim remains a claim on the issuing institution.
The method of bookkeeping or settlement does...