Canada’s OSFI Says Tokenized Deposits Legally Equal to Traditional Deposits

This is a notable regulatory clarification: by treating tokenized deposits as legally equivalent to traditional ones, OSFI removes a key source of ambiguity for Canadian banks weighing whether distributed-ledger products fall outside their existing compliance perimeter. The practical effect is that the technology itself is not the trigger for new oversight — the deposit function is. That said, the guidance is procedural rather than permissive, since firms are still directed to consult supervisors and obtain legal advice before launch. The open question is whether other regulators adopt the same technology-neutral framing or diverge on how tokenized liabilities are characterized.