Peoples Group has partnered with Feedzai to integrate fraud risk-scoring technology ahead of Canada's Real-Time Rail launch.
The move comes ahead of the launch of Canada's Real-Time Rail (RTR) payment system, expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, and is intended to help the company meet regulatory requirements while supporting continuous instant payments processing.
Preparing for instant settlement
When the RTR goes live, transactions are expected to clear and settle continuously, including outside standard banking hours. This removes the settlement delays that financial institutions have historically used to identify and intercept unauthorised transfers. With this in mind, Peoples Group said it is addressing this shift by embedding Feedzai's RiskOps suite across its platform, aiming to allow partner institutions to process real-time transactions while managing exposure to fraud and scams.
David Raju, president and chief executive officer of Peoples Group, said trust is a factor in the adoption of the RTR, and that embedding fraud protection at the transaction level is intended to support participation in an instant payments environment. He added that the integration draws on experience from other real-time payment systems already operating internationally.
Consumer trust and fraud concerns
The partnership responds to patterns identified in Payments Canada's 2025 Canadian Payment Methods and Trends Report. According to the report, 49% of Canadians find real-time payments appealing, while 53% say fraud concerns affect their shopping habits. Peoples Group said the integration of Feedzai's AI and ML tools, which the company states monitor billions of financial events globally each year, is intended to address these concerns by providing risk assessment at the point of transaction.
According to the announcement, the integration will be implemented in phases. The initial phase will focus on real-time transaction fraud monitoring and alert management to support RTR compliance, before expanding to additional payment types and broader financial crime capabilities aligned with regulatory requirements for Canada's retail payments market. The rollout includes Feedzai IQ Score, a federated learning-based fraud network scoring tool that Feedzai announced in June 2026.
Nuno Sebastiao, co-founder and chief executive officer of Feedzai, said the two companies share an objective of supporting safer payment environments, and that combining Feedzai's fraud prevention technology with Peoples Group's network is intended to provide a foundation for scaling real-time payments across Canada.
