Following a recent report by a government task force saying Canada lacks mobile payment options, the Canadian Bankers Association has released a new set of voluntary, secure, open guidelines for the development of mobile payments at point-of-sale in Canada. 

The voluntary guidelines, known as the Mobile Reference Model, will serve as a blueprint for how mobile payment capabilities can be offered in the Canadian market, the association said. Included with the guidelines are standards on how information is exchanged among various parties to a transaction including financial institutions, payment card companies, telecommunications companies and merchants.

The association said that while voluntary, FIs that developed the guidelines are committed to these principles in the mobile market, and the guidelines are intended to create a path to help all market participants move forward in developing mobile payment solutions.

In developing guidelines that all participants in the payments marketplace can work within, the goal is to ensure safety, security and ease of use for merchants and consumers while allowing for innovation and competition among market participants, the CBA said.

According to the group, the guidelines are intended to benefit the market in several ways:

• Enabling innovation: The guidelines provide a common framework for mobile payment capabilities within existing payments systems such as contactless readers. All market participants will benefit from a common foundation for mobile payments.
• Providing clarity and efficiency: A common framework allows for efficiency in the market in developing new mobile payments solutions.
• Delivering continued security: In working with existing, secure contactless payment technology, merchants and consumers benefit by building on an existing system and leveraging the same high security standards used by today’s chip-enabled credit and debit cards.

The CBA said that as part of the process of establishing the guidelines, outreach was undertaken with a wide range of industry stakeholders to ensure the guidelines met the needs of all parties for an open, fair and secure system for mobile payments. It said that process is still ongoing.

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