Eighteen million times a day, Canadians withdraw cash from banking machines and use cheques, debit cards and pre-authorized payments or make other payments that result in one financial institution owing money to another. CPA clears and settles on average $173 billion every day and plays a vital role in Canada’s financial services industry. These transactions must be sent to the financial institution holding the account on which the funds are drawn.

The Challenge
The CPA must continue to provide secure, highly available and cost-effective exchange, clearing and settlement IT systems. Continual and rapid technology advancements, heightened member and stakeholder expectations and emerging payment schemes/services are primary change drivers requiring CPA to invest in its critical IT infrastructure. In this dynamic environment, it is imperative that CPA’s IT systems not only meet existing needs but also have the ability to appropriately respond to future developments.

How CGI Helped
CGI developed an IT infrastructure and network architecture to meet CPA’s stringent availability requirements. CGI operates the mainframe systems and manages the network connections between all members (financial institutions). Through CGI’s network of infrastructure services centers, CGI created a business continuity plan to ensure continued operations in the event of a problem or an incident at the main processing center.

The Result
CPA is a leader in providing reliable, efficient and secure clearing and settlement of Canadian financial transactions. With a solid IT infrastructure and effective operations management provided by CGI, CPA has been able to focus on introducing new services based on leading payment technology.

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