Italy's SIA has beaten out competition from Vocalink and CGI to win the right to build Canada's new core clearing and settlement system.
Like most industrialised nations, Canada has been doing the groundwork on efforts to prepare the country for a switch to real-time payments.
In late 2016, Payments Canada published its multi-year roadmap, which sets out plans for near-term enhancements to existing systems to speed up transactions, as well as longer-term improvements such as the implementation of a faster payments capability and a new ISO 20022-based core clearing and settlement system.
This system, dubbed Lynx, will be built by SIA, after it saw off Vocalink and CGI in a competitive procurement process begun in 2017.
The Italian outfit will now work with Payments Canada and industry stakeholders on the next version of their Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) application solution.
“SIA has a proven track record of delivering innovative, sophisticated solutions across the global payments ecosystem making them well-suited to support with the delivery of Canada’s new high-value payments system,” says Gerry Gaetz, CEO, Payments Canada.
Meanwhile, Payments Canada is onto the next piece in its modernisation puzzle, launching a procurement process for combined hosting and system integration services in support of the end-to-end delivery and operations of Lynx. A supplier should be picked this year.