What is FINTRAC?

FINTRAC — the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada — is the agency most people in payments meet twice: once when a counterparty claims to be “FINTRAC-licensed”, and once when they discover that is not quite a thing FINTRAC does.

It is worth five minutes to know what the agency actually is, because a surprising amount of what circulates about it — in provider marketing, in compliance checklists, even in real-estate offices — is a little bit wrong.

Two jobs in one agency

FINTRAC does two distinct things, and the distinction explains most of its behaviour.

It is Canada’s financial intelligence unit. Reporting entities file suspicious transaction reports, large cash and large virtual currency transaction reports, and electronic funds transfer reports. FINTRAC analyses them and, when legal thresholds are met, discloses intelligence to police, CSIS, the CRA and international counterparts. It is not a police force; it produces intelligence, not arrests.

It is an AML supervisor. The businesses covered by the PCMLTFA must build and run compliance programmes, and FINTRAC examines them and penalises failures. For one category — money services businesses — it also runs mandatory registration and publishes the public MSB Registry.

Who has to deal with it

The PCMLTFA’s reach is wider than most people expect. Alongside banks, credit unions and securities dealers, it covers money services businesses — foreign exchange dealing, money transferring, issuing or redeeming money orders, dealing in virtual currency — plus real estate brokers, sales representatives and developers, casinos, accountants in certain activities, dealers in precious metals and stones, life insurers, and mortgage players. If you have encountered a FINTRAC identification form while buying a house, that is the real-estate sector’s obligations at work.

For payments specifically, the practical rule: if a firm moves money or exchanges currency in Canada as a business, it should appear on the MSB Registry. Whether it does — and for which activities — is checkable in minutes, and how to check is its own guide.

Registration, not licensing

FINTRAC’s MSB regime is registration-based. A firm carrying on a listed activity must register, and registering brings obligations: an appointed compliance officer, written policies, a risk assessment, training, a two-year effectiveness review, and a written plan for keeping the other elements current — plus reporting, record-keeping, and the ministerial directives in force.

What registration is not: an endorsement. FINTRAC does not examine a business model and approve it the way a licensing authority does, it issues no licence, and it prints no certificate. The public registry entry — current status, listed activities, expiry — is the evidence, and it is better evidence than a certificate precisely because you check it yourself.

Firms describing their FINTRAC registration as a “licence” have told you something — not about their permissions, but about how carefully they describe themselves.

What it can fine — the numbers moved

FINTRAC publishes the administrative monetary penalties it imposes, names included. The maxima rose sharply in 2026: since 26 March 2026, prescribed violations carry ceilings of CAD 4 million for individuals and CAD 20 million for entities, and contravening a FINTRAC compliance order can cost an entity up to the greater of CAD 30 million or 3% of gross global revenue. The CAD 100,000 / CAD 500,000 figures still circulating in older compliance summaries stopped being the law in March — a counterparty whose risk assessment still cites them has not refreshed its Canadian analysis since.

The scam that borrows the name

Because FINTRAC touches ordinary transactions, fraudsters borrow its authority: calls and emails claiming to be “FINTRAC” demanding payment, “verification” of banking credentials, or crypto transfers to “unfreeze” funds. The agency does not call individuals about their transactions, does not take payment, and does not ask for credentials. Its supervisory contact with businesses is documented and verifiable. Treat anything else as fraud.

Where KwiikPay stands

KwiikPay is a trading name of KWP Finance Limited, registered with FINTRAC as a money services business including dealing in virtual currency, registration number C100000942, and registered with the Bank of Canada as a payment service provider under the Retail Payment Activities Act. Both are registrations, not licences, and we describe them that way on purpose — the same standard this page applies to everyone else.