Bank of Canada Flags Urgent Need for Federal Stablecoin Rules to Cut Costly Cross-Border Payments

The Bank of Canada is pressing for tighter oversight of stablecoins as their role in global payments swells to the trillions. Speaking Thursday at the CPA conference in Ottawa, Senior Deputy Governor Ron Morrow said these digital assets must be “as safe and stable as the balance in your bank account” before being allowed to scale widely.

Morrow highlighted that international money transfers from Canada are significantly more expensive than in markets like the United States or the United Kingdom, a burden that hits immigrant communities especially hard. Traditional remittance services often take 5%–10% of small transfers, he noted, while stablecoins can lower that cost to less than 1% by relying mainly on network fees.

Drawing a sharp comparison, Morrow described paying with Bitcoin as “like agreeing to pay for lunch with shares of a tech start-up,” while stablecoins, pegged to fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, are designed to trade at a predictable value.

Canada currently depends on provincial securities laws and federal anti-money-laundering measures for oversight, but lacks a dedicated federal framework. Morrow urged lawmakers to consider national rules similar to those emerging overseas, pointing to U.S. initiatives like the GENIUS Act and regulatory pilots in Hong Kong and Dubai as models.

Survey data he cited shows nearly 60% of Canadian business leaders fear the country will lose competitiveness without faster payment innovation. A Canadian fiat-backed stablecoin, he said, would need seamless integration with domestic payment networks, global interoperability, and clear regulation to thrive in a market dominated by the U.S. dollar.

With blockchain networks such as Ethereum and Solana enabling instant global trade, Morrow predicted that “all sovereign nations will want to issue digital currencies,” making it critical for Canada to move swiftly on stablecoin policy.