AUTOMATED FUNDS TRANSFER SYSTEM FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FILE (FIF)

RULE F7

2018 CANADIAN PAYMENTS ASSOCIATION

This Rule is copyrighted by the Canadian Payments Association. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part, without express written permission by the Canadian Payments Association.

Payments Canada is the operating brand name of the Canadian Payments Association (CPA). For legal purposes we continue to use “Canadian Payments Association” (or the Association) in these rules and in information related to rules, by-laws, and standards.

RULE F7 – AUTOMATED FUNDS TRANSFER SYSTEM FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FILE (FIF)

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IMPLEMENTED

January 22, 1996

AMENDMENTS PRE-NOVEMBER 2003

June 4, 2001

AMENDMENTS POST- NOVEMBER 2003

1. Amendment to reflect consistency with the new CPA Payment Items and ACSS By-law, approved by the Board November 27, 2003, effective January 27, 2004.

2. Consequential amendments to Section 15 to clarify Member’s responsibilities upon acquisition and amalgamation, approved by the Board March 26, 2009, effective May 25, 2009.

3. Housekeeping amendments approved by the Board October 3, 2013, effective December 2, 2013.

4. General review of Rule, approved by the Board June 18, 2015, effective August 17, 2015.

5. Amendments to reflect timing of new FIF versions, approved by the Board June 22, 2017, effective September 17, 2018.

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Introduction

1. This Rule outlines the procedures applicable to the use of the Financial Institutions File (FIF) for the Exchange of AFT Transactions. This Rule outlines the rights and responsibilities of Members in subscribing to the FIF system and how certain data on the FIF are to be used in facilitating the transfer of funds.

References to Eastern Time (ET) in this Rule are to be understood as either Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Daylight Time, depending on the time in Ottawa.

References

2. This Rule shall be read in conjunction with the FIF Subscribers’ Manual, the FIF User Manual and the FIF Subscription Agreement.

Proprietary Nature of FIF

3. a. The CPA has exclusive property of the FIF and owns the intellectual property rights of the FIF.

b. In accordance with the FIF Subscription Agreement, every Member shall maintain the confidential and proprietary nature of the FIF and related materials.

Member Subscription

4. A Member wishing to subscribe to the FIF shall provide the following information to the CPA (as outlined in the FIF Subscription Agreement and the FIF Output Requisition Form):

a. type of output required;

b. frequency of output;

c. output delivery methods;

d. point of contact for operational considerations and telephone number; and

e. point of contact and telephone number for invoicing purposes.

Members as Sponsors

5. A Member sponsoring a non-Member for subscription to the FIF service shall enter into a signed third-party agreement between the CPA, the Member (sponsor) and the institution it sponsors (subscriber). The subscription agreement form shall be available upon request from the CPA Service Desk.

Disclosure of Information

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6. A Member shall abide by the clauses of the Subscription Agreement and the Subscribers’ Manual as to disclosure of information in the FIF.

Delivery of Output and Use of FIF

7. a. The CPA shall deliver FIF output to FIF subscribers by mutually agreed means each Monday, or where Monday is not a business day, on the immediately preceding business day.

b. New versions of the FIF shall become effective for the exchange of AFT Files following the Friday 21:00 ET Exchange Deadline.

Updates to the FIF

8. a. All information on the FIF shall be considered current and valid. All changes to and notifications concerning clearing arrangements shall carry a Thursday effective date.

b. Updates shall be delivered to the CPA at least seven (7) calendar days in advance of the FIF Cycle Date. The deadline for submission of changes is Thursday before 12:00 pm ET. Changes received less than seven (7) calendar days prior to the FIF Cycle Date shall be included in the next available cycle. Users may submit changes to the CPA up to twenty-eight (28) calendar days prior to the appropriate FIF Cycle Date for the change. Changes received more than twenty-eight days in advance may be returned to the originators.

Indirect Clearer and Eligible Non-Member Change of Clearing Agent

9. Where an Indirect Clearer changes its Clearing Agent, the new Clearing Agent and the existing Clearing Agent shall each provide at least one month notice of the change to the CPA. Subsequent changes to data in the FIF shall be submitted to the CPA in accordance with subsection 8(b) above. The CPA shall confirm the change with the existing Clearing Agent. Once changes have been applied by the CPA and the FIF has been updated, they are irrevocable except on a further minimum one month notification as described above.

Warehouse Transactions

10. The following procedures shall apply to each Direct Clearer where notice has been given of a change of Clearing Agent relationship. This change may relate to a change at the Branch or institution level.

a. subject to subsection (c), where not less than one month notice of the change has been given to all Direct Clearers by the CPA, each Direct Clearer shall ensure that

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Warehoused Transactions destined to that Indirect Clearer are delivered to the newly appointed Clearing Agent;

b. subject to subsection (c), where less than one month notice of the change has been given to all Direct Clearers by the CPA, each Direct Clearer shall on a best effort basis ensure that Warehoused Transactions are delivered to the newly appointed Clearing Agent; and

c. For the purposes of subsections (a) and (b):

i. the obligation to deliver Warehoused Transactions to the newly appointed Clearing Agent shall begin on the next Business Day following the date of the change of Clearing Agent;

ii. Warehoused Transactions are limited to those transactions that have not been Exchanged for the purpose of Clearing and Settlement; and

iii. each Originating Direct Clearer shall ensure that all data elements in each transaction properly reflect the delivery of the transaction to the newly appointed Clearing Agent.

Delayed Use of New FIF

11. a. On the change over date of the new clearing arrangements, the affected Indirect Clearer may be represented by two Clearing Agents.

The institution acting as Clearing Agent up to the time of the change over date shall delay applying the new FIF for one processing day, on the change over date, in order to permit editing of received Files on the same basis on which the Files were created.

b. Where a serviceability code for an Indirect Clearer is changed to indicate a reduced lead time, the Clearing Agent for the Indirect Clearer shall not reject Items solely for the reason that the lead time is too long.

Routing AFT Transactions

12. a. AFT Transactions destined to FIF “V” status Branches, which contain no data in the cross-referenced number field, are to be forwarded to the registered Data Centre servicing the Branch.

b. AFT Transactions destined to FIF “C” Branches, shall not be delivered to the Processing Direct Clearer.

c. AFT Transactions destined to FIF “X” Branches, must contain data in the cross-reference number field, and are to be forwarded to the registered Data Centre

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servicing the Branch identified in the cross-reference field. The Originating Direct Clearer shall deliver the original AFT Transaction unaltered.

d. AFT Transactions destined to Branches not contained on the FIF file shall not be delivered to the Processing Direct Clearer.

Encoding Conventions

13. a. If there is no data in the MICR Encoding data field for a Branch of an Indirect Clearer with institution type 11, this condition means that the Indirect Clearer does not allow chequing privileges.

b. If there is no data in the MICR Encoding data field for an Indirect Clearer with institution type 10, this condition means that the Indirect Clearer encodes its Institution Number on its Cheques.

c. If there is data present in the MICR Encoding data field for an Indirect Clearer with institution type either 10 or 11, the data contained in this field overrides the Institution Number for encoding purposes

Amalgamations

14. In the event of an amalgamation between two (2) or more Direct Clearers (including Group Clearers) or the acquisition of one Direct or Group Clearer by another, a twelve (12) month period shall be allowed to gradually phase out the use of the AFT Exchange Points associated with the Institution Number of the acquired or amalgamated institution, subject to the exercise of the President’s discretion pursuant to subsection 36(2) of By-Law No. 3.