TITLE: Pesa gains Payments Canada membership to access national payment systems
CATEGORY: Payments
SUMMARY: Pesa became a member of Payments Canada, gaining a pathway to apply for participation in Canada’s national payment systems.
By joining Payments Canada, Pesa obtains a route to seek entry into the country’s national payment systems while it moves toward speedier and more transparent money transfers.
Becoming a member of Payments Canada represents an important milestone for Pesa and reflects how far we have come in building trusted financial infrastructure in Canada…”— Tolulope Osho, CEO and Co-founder PesaTORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, October 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Pesa, a cross-border financial services provider serving diaspora communities across the UK, Canada, the US, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, the UAE and Europe, today revealed that it has become a member of Payments Canada, the statutory, public purpose organization responsible for Canada's critical payment infrastructure.
This membership follows amendments to the Canadian Payments Act that widened eligibility to include registered payment service providers under Canada's Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA). These modifications aim to broaden access to Canada's national payment infrastructure and encourage greater participation and innovation throughout the payments ecosystem.
For Pesa, this membership creates fresh ways to engage with Payments Canada and provides a path toward more direct involvement with Canada's payment infrastructure, along with the ability to apply for participation in its systems, subject to Pesa meeting the applicable requirements.
Tolulope Osho, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder at Pesa, said:
“Becoming a member of Payments Canada is an important milestone for Pesa and for the customers who trust us to move money across borders. We started Pesa because we experienced firsthand how difficult and frustrating that could be. As we've grown, we've invested in building the infrastructure behind the experience as much as the experience itself. This membership gives us another opportunity to build toward faster, more seamless ways for our customers to move and manage money.”
Readying for the next generation of payments
Pesa's membership arrives at a key moment in the modernization of Canada's payment infrastructure.
Scheduled to launch in Q4 2026, Canada’s real-Time Rail (RTR) is designed to enable instant, data-rich payments 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. To protect the safety, security and stability of Canada’s financial ecosystem, Payments Canada is taking a phased approach to onboarding participants, who meet the applicable technical, operational and security requirements before participating.
The C.D. Howe Institute estimates that the RTR's initial capabilities could generate between $5.3 billion and $14.5 billion in cost savings over the next decade, with total economic gains of $16 billion, potentially exceeding $27 billion as additional functionality is introduced. The RTR moves money within Canada, so if Pesa ultimately participates in these systems, the underlying infrastructure could support improvements to the speed, transparency and convenience of the inbound segment of payment experience for customers moving money across borders.
Donna Kinoshita, Chief Payment Officer at Payments Canada, said: “Welcoming organizations like Pesa into Payments Canada’s membership reflects the growing interest in Canadian payments. Pesa is joining at an exciting moment as we prepare for the launch of Canada’s
