The Large Value Transfer System, or LVTS, was the primary system in Canada for electronic

wire transfer Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash ...

s of large sums of money, and was operated by

Payments Canada Canadian Payments Association, carrying on business under the brand name Payments Canada, is an organization that operates a payment clearing and settlement system in Canada. The Canadian Payments Association was established by the ''Canadian P ...

. It permitted the participating institutions and their clients to send large sums of money securely in real-time with complete certainty that the payment will settle. The system was replaced in September 2021 by a new high-value payment system called Lynx. Established in 1999, LVTS processed the majority of payments made every day in Canada, and was designed to work with funds in

Canadian dollar The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style g ...

s (CAD). On a normal business day, it cleared and settled approximately

CA$ The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style g ...

398 billion. Frequently, when settling the payments made through LVTS between each other, some banks found themselves with extra funds while others found themselves short; to come up with money, the banks were able borrow it from each other for a day, or "overnight". The rate at which they borrowed being called

overnight rate The overnight rate is generally the interest rate that large banks use to borrow and lend from one another in the overnight market. In some countries (the United States, for example), the overnight rate may be the rate targeted by the central b ...

, targets for which were set by the

Bank of Canada The Bank of Canada (BoC; french: Banque du Canada) is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank. Chartered in 1934 under the '' Bank of Canada Act'', it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy,OECD. OECD Economic Surveys: ...

as part of its

monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often ...

. LVTS was a real-time payment system: the recipient of the payment received it irrevocably in near real-time. As it settled on a deferred net basis at the end of each day, it was not a real-time gross settlement system.

Participating institutions

, there were 16 institutions, including the

, participating in LVTS: *

ATB Financial ATB Financial is a financial institution and Crown corporation wholly owned by the province of Alberta, the only province in Canada with such a financial institution under its exclusive ownership. Originally established as Alberta Treasury Br ...

* Bank of America National Association *

Bank of Montreal The Bank of Montreal (BMO; french: Banque de Montréal, link=no) is a Canadian multinational investment bank and financial services company. The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank; while its head office remains in ...

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...

(Canada) *

CIBC The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC; french: Banque canadienne impériale de commerce) is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered at CIBC Square in the Financial District of Toronto, Ontario. T ...

* Central 1 Credit Union (which represents BC and Ontario credit unions) *

Desjardins Group The Desjardins Group (french: Mouvement Desjardins) is a Canadian financial service cooperative and the largest federation of credit unions (french: caisses populaires) in North America. It was founded in 1900 in Lévis, Quebec by Alphonse Des ...

(French: ''Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Quebec'') *

HSBC Bank Canada HSBC Bank Canada (french: Banque HSBC Canada), formerly the Hongkong Bank of Canada (HBC), is a Canadian chartered bank and the Canadian subsidiary of British multinational banking and financial services company HSBC. HSBC Canada is the seventh ...

* ICICI Bank Canada *

Laurentian Bank of Canada The Laurentian Bank of Canada (LBC; french: Banque Laurentienne du Canada, link=no) is a Schedule 1 bank that operates primarily in the province of Quebec, with commercial and business banking offices located in Ontario, Alberta, British Columb ...

National Bank of Canada The National Bank of Canada (french: Banque Nationale du Canada) is the sixth largest commercial bank in Canada. It is headquartered in Montreal, and has branches in most Canadian provinces and 2.4 million personal clients. National Bank is the ...

Royal Bank of Canada Royal Bank of Canada (RBC; french: Banque royale du Canada) is a Canadian multinational financial services company and the largest bank in Canada by market capitalization. The bank serves over 17 million clients and has more than 89,000& ...

Scotiabank The Bank of Nova Scotia (french: link=no, Banque de Nouvelle-Écosse), operating as Scotiabank (french: link=no, Banque Scotia), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. One of Canada ...

State Street Bank and Trust Company State Street Bank and Trust Company, more commonly known as State Street Global Services or simply Global Services, is a subsidiary of State Street Corporation organized as a trust company based in Massachusetts specializing in services to mutual fu ...

Toronto-Dominion Bank Toronto-Dominion Bank (french: links=no, Banque Toronto-Dominion), doing business as TD Bank Group (french: links=no, Groupe Banque TD), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Canadian Payments Association's LVTS OverviewA list of LVTS non-participant partners (usually smaller financial institutions)
Banking terms Banking in Canada Interbank networks

Participating institutions

See also

References

External links