New ways to pay, same need for trust

This article first appeared on TheHub.ca

Canadians now have more ways than ever to pay for goods and services. We tap our phones at the grocery store, click buttons online to pay a bill, and send money to a friend through an app. These new options are fast, convenient, and increasingly built into everyday life.

But as paying gets easier, the system behind it has become more complicated. New business models and technologies are reshaping how payment services are delivered, expanding who can offer them and how consumers access them. As this evolution unfolds, the rules governing how consumers are treated must keep pace to ensure clarity, accountability and overall confidence in the system. As new payment options continue to appear, the rules that protect consumers need to keep up.

More choice, more complexity

A growing range of companies now offer payment services, broadening how Canadians move and manage money. While this competition has enhanced convenience and choice, it has also created a more layered landscape, where the rules governing similar services are not always consistent.

For example, a consumer might use a bank‑issued debit card in one transaction and a digital wallet or payment app in another, even though both are simply ways to move money. Behind the scenes, however, those services may operate under very different consumer protection rules.

For consumers, the experience should be simple and predictable, no matter which service they use. That means clear information and confidence that their money is protected. When similar payment services are held to very different standards, confusion and uneven protection can follow.

A step forward, but not the whole answer

Canada has already taken an important step to update how payment services are overseen. The Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA), which came into effect in 2025, establishes oversight regulations focused on ensuring providers have strong risk management and incident response frameworks in place, and requirements for protecting money that consumers send through payment service providers.

These changes strengthen how payment systems are overseen and help reduce operational failures. However, the RPAA doesn’t create a comprehensive market conduct framework addressing how consumers are treated in their day‑to‑day interactions, including what information they receive, how problems are handled, or what happens when something goes wrong.

Why consumer protection matters

Strong consumer protection rules focus on how people experience payments. Rules help ensure that consumers understand how a service works, what fees may apply, how their funds are protected, and where to turn if something goes wrong. They also ensure complaints are dealt with in a consistent manner at all stages of the complaint‑handling process. For instance, if a payment is sent to the wrong account or a transaction appears that a consumer does not recognize and the consumer has a complaint, the consumer needs to know who to contact and what process will follow.

These protections are especially important as payments become embedded within digital platforms, and other digital services. In many cases, consumers may deal with more than one company in a single transaction, without knowing which one is responsible for what. For example, paying through an online marketplace might involve the platform, a payment processor, and the consumer’s financial institution, even though the experience appears as a single click to the user. Clear rules help prevent confusion and protect consumers when problems arise.

Learning from what already works

In Canada, market conduct rules apply to banks through the Financial Consumer Protection Framework under the Bank Act. These rules require clear information for consumers and a comprehensive complaint‑handling regime, which has helped build trust in the financial system.

Around the world, governments and international organizations have been paying closer attention to how new payment services affect consumers. Groups like the G20 and the OECD have highlighted the need for clear consumer protections that reflect how people actually use modern payment services. Their work recognizes that newer digital models can introduce different risks, and that traditional, one‑size‑fits all‑rules may not always work. Instead, they emphasize basic principles that matter to consumers everywhere: clear information, accountability, and easy ways to resolve problems.

As the payments world evolves, similar protections should apply wherever consumers face similar risks ― regardless of the type of institution providing the service.