EFT Rails

ISO 20022 in Canada

Matching a payment to a customer or invoice depends on the reference information that travels with it. ISO 20022 structures that information for Canada's wire and real-time systems.

Updated November 3, 2026

What EFT Rails does

When you send a payment through EFT Rails, your reference comes back unchanged, and the payment also carries the reference that appears on your bank statement. See the API reference for how both are returned.

Open an account

Open an account

What ISO 20022 is

When a customer pays you, you need to identify the payer, match the money to an invoice and reconcile it in your accounting records. Your application also needs to distinguish an accepted payment from a rejected one. The practical question is how much of that information travels with the payment and whether your bank passes it through.

ISO 20022 is an international standard for financial messages. It gives parties, accounts, amounts, references and remittance information named, structured elements. On the Real-Time Rail, acceptance and rejection are reported through pacs.002 status messages.1

Where it is used

Lynx, the Real-Time Rail (RTR), and electronic funds transfer (EFT) files use ISO 20022 in different ways and on different timelines.

System Status What the messages carry
Lynx ISO 20022 arrived in March 2023, ran alongside MT messages, and became the sole message standard on November 22, 2025.2 Payment details plus more business information, including invoice and purchase order details.2
Real-Time Rail The customer credit transfer, pacs.008, is the only payment message.3 Payment details and structured remittance information of up to 9,000 characters.4
EFT files Files can use ISO 20022 or the older Standard 005 form.5 ISO files follow the ISO AFT Usage Guidelines. Standard 005 credit records use short fixed fields for names and references.6

Lynx

Lynx is Canada's high-value payment system, and its payments settle individually with finality. Payments Canada introduced ISO 20022 messages with the second Lynx release in March 2023. The system then processed the older MT messages and the ISO 20022 messages, called MX messages, side by side. It moved fully to MX on November 22, 2025.2

Payments Canada says the move lets high-value payments carry much more information. Its examples are invoice and purchase order details that a business can bring into its accounting system.2

A Lynx payment settles immediately after it clears. Once settled, it is final and irrevocable.7

For a comparison with file-based payments, see EFT payments and wire transfers.

The Real-Time Rail

The Real-Time Rail sends a payment and returns its outcome through ISO 20022 messages. Its only payment message is the customer credit transfer, pacs.008, formatted to Payments Canada's RTR ISO 20022 message specifications.3

The message carries the amount, the payee's account number, the institution numbers for both banks, and a unique end-to-end transaction reference (UETR). A reference reused within 90 calendar days is rejected as a duplicate.8

The receiving bank answers each payment with a pacs.002 status message accepting or rejecting it. The system then reports the outcome to both banks with another pacs.002.1

Structured remittance information can run to 9,000 characters, excluding tags. The payee's bank passes that information to the payee no later than 60 seconds after the money is made available. It keeps the information for at least 90 calendar days.4

Read more about the Real-Time Rail and irrevocable payments. For the difference between the rail and Interac e-Transfer, see Real-Time Rail vs Interac e-Transfer.

EFT files

EFT files carry payment instructions between financial institutions, and they can use ISO 20022 or the older Standard 005 form. The ISO 20022 form follows Payments Canada's ISO AFT Usage Guidelines, while Rule F1 governs Standard 005 files.5

These files carry automated funds transfer (AFT) transactions. The pre-authorized debit (PAD) rule is read with both Standard 005 and the ISO AFT Usage Guidelines. A PAD's category goes in the transaction code element of an ISO file or the corresponding field of a Standard 005 file.9

A Standard 005 credit record uses short fixed fields for reference information. It allows 15 characters for the sender's short name, 30 for the payee's name, 19 for the sender's cross reference and 15 for sundry information.10

See the CPA 005 file format and EFT payments in Canada.

Sources (10)
  1. RTR Rule 6, section 12; RTR Rule 1, "Payment Outcome Report" ↩
  2. Payments Canada, "Bringing data-rich, high-value payments to Canada: Lynx fully adopts the ISO 20022 standard" ↩
  3. RTR Rule 6, sections 1 and 4 ↩
  4. RTR Rule 10, sections 1, 4 and 5 ↩
  5. Rule F4, "Introduction"; Rule F4, "Scope" ↩
  6. Rule F4, "Introduction"; Rule F4, "Scope"; Standard 005, Section D, Type C, elements 11, 12, 15 and 18 ↩
  7. Bank of Canada, "A brief overview of Lynx" ↩
  8. RTR Rule 6, sections 5 and 9 ↩
  9. Rule H1, sections 3 and 20 ↩
  10. Standard 005, Section D, Type C, elements 11, 12, 15 and 18 ↩

Questions

What is ISO 20022?

ISO 20022 is an international standard for financial messages. It carries parties, accounts, amounts, references and remittance information in named, structured elements, so more reference information can travel with a payment.

Does Lynx use ISO 20022?

Yes. Payments Canada introduced it with the second Lynx release in March 2023, and Lynx ran MT and MX messages side by side before moving fully to MX on November 22, 2025.1

Does the Real-Time Rail use ISO 20022?

Yes. Its only payment message is the pacs.008 customer credit transfer.2 The receiving bank responds with a pacs.002 status message, and the system uses another pacs.002 to report the outcome to both banks.3

Do EFT files use ISO 20022?

They can. ISO 20022 EFT files follow Payments Canada's ISO AFT Usage Guidelines, while files in the older Standard 005 form are governed by Rule F1.4

How much remittance information can a payment carry?

On the Real-Time Rail, structured remittance information can run to 9,000 characters, and the payee's bank passes it to the payee no later than 60 seconds after the money is made available.5 A Standard 005 credit record has much shorter fixed fields, including 19 characters for the sender's cross reference and 15 for sundry information.6

Sources (6)
  1. Payments Canada, "Bringing data-rich, high-value payments to Canada: Lynx fully adopts the ISO 20022 standard" ↩
  2. RTR Rule 6, sections 1 and 4 ↩
  3. RTR Rule 6, section 12; RTR Rule 1, "Payment Outcome Report" ↩
  4. Rule F4, "Introduction"; Rule F4, "Scope" ↩
  5. RTR Rule 10, sections 1, 4 and 5 ↩
  6. Standard 005, Section D, Type C, elements 11, 12, 15 and 18 ↩

Open an account

Open an account