The ACSS is owned and operated by the Canadian Payments Association (CPA), an organization established by the Canadian Payments Act to operate national payment systems.
The ACSS is being designated following the expansion of the Bank’s oversight responsibilities in December 2014 to include systems that have the potential to pose payments system risk (referred to as Prominent Payment Systems).
A disruption or failure of a Prominent Payment System could cause a significant adverse effect on economic activity in Canada, potentially leading to a general loss of confidence in the overall Canadian payments system.
Each day the ACSS clears the majority of non-cash retail payments in Canada, or almost 27 million transactions with a value of $24.7 billion, on average. Given the variety of payments cleared, several without immediate substitutes, and the importance of those payments for a broad range of economic activity, it is considered to be central to the Canadian payments system.
Designation brings the system under the formal oversight of the Bank of Canada, which requires compliance with Risk Management Standards for Prominent Payment Systems.
These are based on the CPMI-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI); amended to reflect the different risks posed by Prominent Payment Systems compared to systems designated as systemically important. Designation also provides the system with legal protections that are important to the finality of payments.
The Minister of Finance has confirmed that he is of the opinion that designation of the ACSS is in the public interest.
