Deloitte Canada and Stablecorp are collaborating to develop stablecoin infrastructure for Canadian financial institutions, aiming to integrate Stablecorp’s Canadian-dollar stablecoin, QCAD, into payment and settlement workflows for institutional clients, the firms said in a Monday statement.
Stablecorp, a Toronto-based fintech, issues QCAD, a fiat-backed stablecoin pegged to the Canadian dollar. Soumak Chatterjee, a partner in Deloitte Canada’s financial services division, said the initiative is intended to help banks and other institutions prepare for stablecoin adoption once a regulatory framework is in place. The firms highlighted potential use cases including 24/7 payments, faster settlement, blockchain-based recordkeeping and new financial products built on tokenized infrastructure. No bank partners or rollout timeline were provided.
The move comes as the Canadian government advances a federal framework for fiat-backed stablecoins under Bill C-15, a budget implementation bill introduced in November that includes a proposed national stablecoin regime. While former Bank of England governor and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has previously expressed skepticism about crypto, he has more recently noted that digital-asset technologies could improve financial stability, support more efficient payment services and have broader applications.
The Bank of Canada has called for clearer stablecoin rules to modernize payment systems, saying any framework should ensure stablecoins are fully backed by high-quality liquid assets and redeemable at par, and warning that regulatory delays could leave Canada behind other jurisdictions. The push follows regulatory momentum in the United States, including last summer’s passage of the GENIUS Act.
The market for Canadian-dollar stablecoins is currently small compared with the dominant U.S. dollar segment, where Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC account for the majority of global stablecoin supply and usage. The Bank of Canada shelved plans for a central bank digital currency in September 2024 after more than seven years of research and a public consultation that drew nearly 90,000 responses.
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