Payments Canada, the country’s public purpose non-profit organization that facilitates national payments, announced the launch of high-value payment system Lynx, according to a press release.
The Lynx platform will be used to process large, time-critical payments and real-time settlements, and provide additional cyber security to these processes. The software was also designed with flexibility to adopt future technology, such as APIs and new interfaces, according to the organization.
The software was designated by the Bank of Canada in the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act, as a systematically important system.
Lynx’s second version release is already planned for late 2022 and will introduce the ISO 20022 message standard in order to bring new products, services and digitization of manual invoicing and payment reconciliation processes, according to FinExtra.
The platform built by SIA with IBM providing hosting and system integration, and will be owned and operated by Payment Canada with oversight by the Bank of Canada.
“It’s essential that Canada has a modern and robust wholesale payments system, and so, after much preparation, I’m very pleased to see the arrival of Lynx. The launch of Lynx is an important step in making sure Canada’s financial system remains secure, stable and efficient in today’s rapidly evolving economy,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem stated in the release.
Payments Canada is an organization created by Canadian legislature with the purpose of establishing and operating Canada’s national payment systems.
The Canadian Payments Act mandated the establishment of the organization, which has the primary objectives of establishing and operating national clearing and settlement payment systems, facilitating the interaction of said systems and development of new payment methods and technologies.
Lynx is one part of a multi-year, multi-system payment modernization plan by Payment Canada, which will also include a real-time payments system they are also currently building.
“Lynx is an integral part of our broader payments Modernization initiative to deliver the future of payments for Canada. The launch of Lynx represents a significant collaborative effort between Payments Canada, our member participants, our technology partners IBM and SIA, and the Bank of Canada,” Payments Canada President and CEO Tracey Black stated in the release.
In other recent fintech news, Vic.ai raised a $50 million Series B led by ICONIQ Growth in a push to automate enterprise accounting. Tel Aviv-based PayEm also announced raising $27 million in seed and Series A funding to further their goal of simplifying non-payroll spending for global businesses.