Crossmint Secures RPAA and MSB Registration in Canada

With registration as a payment service provider under the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) and as a Money Services Business with FINTRAC, Crossmint now operates under both of the frameworks governing stablecoin funds movement in Canada, giving fintechs one regulated provider for onramps, offramps, and cross-border transfers.

In July, we announced authorization as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under MiCA and as a Payment Institution under PSD2, covering the full stack for stablecoin payments across the EEA. These registrations in Canada continue our journey to become a single regulated partner for enterprise fintechs, neobanks, remittance providers, and payroll platforms adopting stablecoin rails.

A Complete Regulatory Stack for Stablecoin Funds Movement in Canada

The RPAA registration brings us under Bank of Canada supervision for payment activities, which is what stablecoin orchestration requires. The FINTRAC MSB registration covers currency exchange and virtual currency services, which is what onramps and offramps require. A fintech that wants both flows in Canada would need to partner with a provider holding both registrations.

What the PSP and MSB registrations unlock:

• Onramps and offramps for Canadian users. Businesses building on us can offer Canadian residents and business clients fiat-to-stablecoin and stablecoin-to-fiat conversion.
• Remittance and cross-border payout flows. Canadian clients can fund transfers via bank transfer (EFT, wire or Interac e-Transfer) or stablecoins, with recipients paid out via bank transfer or stablecoins. These rails support regulated cross-border money movement for Canadian clients, both into and out of Canada, including stablecoin-based settlement for cross-border payouts, through infrastructure operated under Bank of Canada supervision.

"Holding both registrations allows us to support the full money movement flow for Canadian users,” said Miguel Zapatero, General Counsel for Crossmint. “Fintechs building on us can now meet the necessary regulatory requirements without holding registrations of their own.”

Why This Matters For Fintechs

Canadian demand for stablecoin rails is real and growing, and the enterprises building to meet that demand must operate within the set regulatory requirements. Under MSB and RPAA, moving stablecoins funds for Canadian users is a supervised activity carrying continuing obligations rather than a one-time approval. This means a Canadian entity, an AML compliance program, a comprehensive risk management framework, a FINTRAC filing, a Bank of Canada registration, and provincial registration wherever you operate. These necessary programs and registrations end up being months of work before a single transaction settles, none of it the product that was set out to ship.

And the regulatory landscape is continuing to evolve. Canada is also building out the other half of the stablecoin regulatory stack. The federal Stablecoin Act, introduced through Bill C-15, has received Royal Assent, and the Department of Finance expects it in force in 2027. It targets a different layer than the RPAA: non-financial-institution issuers of fiat-backed stablecoins will need to register with the Bank of Canada, hold reserves at a qualified custodian, and offer at-par redemption.

"With the passage of Bill C-15, Canada has taken a significant step toward establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins and reinforcing its role as an emerging part of Canada’s broader payments ecosystem. Crossmint will be a part of that evolution as an RPAA-registered PSP," said Ignacio López del Moral, Senior Regulatory Counsel at Crossmint.

For fintechs, the direction of travel is clear: building on regulated infrastructure today means being better positioned to scale as Canada's stablecoin framework continues to evolve. "We built Crossmint so that fintechs can enter a market without first building a licensing team," said Zapatero. "Every registration we add is one less thing our customers have to go get for themselves, and we are not done adding them."

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