Multipass is a financial services provider offering global business accounts, multi-currency payments, and cross-border transaction solutions.
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Crypto Banking
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Canada · MSB
Crypto banking for Canadian MSBs dealing in virtual currency
A virtual currency dealer in Canada answers to FINTRAC for every coin it exchanges or sends, and to the provincial securities regulators as soon as clients leave crypto on its books. The platform keeps the records the first regulator asks for and helps you see where the second one starts.
- An exchange record for every buy, sell and swap
- Fiat value of each crypto receipt at your own rate
- Originator and beneficiary data on crypto transfers
- Client and company holdings kept apart on the ledger
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What a virtual currency dealer can offer on the platform
Buying and selling crypto for CAD
Clients buy, sell and swap with liquidity from a connected provider and see the rate and the fee before they confirm. Each trade is stored with the client, both amounts, the rate and the time.
Delivery to the client's own wallet
Crypto bought on the platform can be sent on-chain to an address the client controls. Whether delivery counts as immediate under securities law depends on your terms and how you settle, so set this up with your lawyers.
Crypto accounts with deposit addresses
Each client gets crypto accounts with their own deposit address and QR code. The keys sit with the custody provider you contract, never with Crassula.
Fiat accounts in the same app
CAD and other currency balances beside the crypto, funded and paid out through your banking partner, so clients can cash out without a second app.
Crypto-linked cards
Visa or Mastercard cards that spend crypto-linked balances, with conversion to fiat at the point of sale. You sign directly with the card issuer.
What this licence does not cover
- Holding clients' crypto for them as a trading service on FINTRAC registration alone. The CSA treats a platform that gives clients a claim on crypto, rather than delivering it, as dealing in securities or derivatives, and since 6 August 2024 new crypto trading platforms apply to CIRO for investment dealer registration.
- Offering margin, credit or leverage to clients if you become a registered crypto trading platform. The terms the CSA set for these platforms rule it out.
- Planning a crypto ATM network. The federal government proposed a ban on crypto ATMs in its 2026 Spring Economic Update, and the legislation was still to come when this page was written.
What the regulator asks about your IT
Each requirement, what the platform gives you for it and who owns it after launch.
Every crypto deposit and trade is posted with a timestamp and its CAD value at the rate you set, and exports per client let you group receipts over any 24-hour window.
You file with FINTRAC, on platform dataThe rate used for each trade and each valuation is written to the transaction record, so the figure in a report can be traced back to its source.
Your compliance officerEach buy, sell and swap keeps the client, the currencies and amounts, the rate, the fee and the time. Identity checks with document scanning and liveness run at onboarding through a connected provider.
CrassulaThe data is collected before an on-chain withdrawal is created and exchanged through a connected Travel Rule provider.
You, with your Travel Rule providerYour staff can see each incoming transfer in the back office and freeze the client's account while the information is chased.
Your compliance officerTransaction monitoring, risk scoring and on-chain analytics run through connected providers, and your team sees the reasons behind each flag. The decision to report is yours.
Your compliance officerTransfer records with addresses, amounts and parties stay retrievable for the full retention period, together with the audit trail of staff actions.
SharedClient holdings and company holdings sit on separate ledger accounts, with exports your team reconciles against the custodian's statements.
You, with your custodian
Payment rails and providers
Rails your customers can use
On-chain transfersInternal transfersSWIFTCrypto-linked cards
24/7
real-time processing, no batch window
60+
payment and provider integrations connected
150+
companies run on Crassula
15+
languages the platform speaks
Dates to plan around
Rules that change what you have to build, in the order they apply.
6 Aug 2024
The CSA stopped accepting new pre-registration undertakings and ended time-limited restricted dealer registration for new entrants. New crypto trading platforms apply to CIRO.
16 Oct 2025
FINTRAC imposed a penalty of CAD 176,960,190 on Xeltox Enterprises (Cryptomus), largely for unreported large virtual currency transactions and suspicious transactions. The firm has appealed.
26 Mar 2026
Bill C-15 received Royal Assent with the federal Stablecoin Act. Issuers of fiat-backed stablecoins will register with the Bank of Canada once its provisions are brought into force.
2027
The Stablecoin Act framework is expected to come into force once the Department of Finance has finished the regulations. Until then, stablecoins on trading platforms follow the CSA's interim approach.
Registering with FINTRAC as a virtual currency dealer? Show a working product.
FINTRAC will ask how you identify clients, value crypto and keep records, and a securities regulator may ask who holds the coins. We give you a live platform and the technical write-up, while your lawyers and compliance officer handle the filings.
01
A platform you can demonstrate
A configured environment to show the regulator, not slides.
02
The technical part of your application, prepared
How trades, deposits and withdrawals are recorded, where client data is stored, which providers handle custody, liquidity and travel rule messaging, and how incidents are handled.
03
Providers lined up
Banking, custody and KYC providers from our network, matched to your registration.
Crassula provides technology and documentation support. We do not provide legal or regulatory advice and cannot guarantee the outcome of an application.
How a launch usually runs
Picture a team in Vancouver that wants to sell bitcoin and ether to Canadians and send the coins straight to each buyer's own wallet. They register with FINTRAC as an MSB dealing in virtual currency and ask their lawyers to confirm that this model stays outside securities law.
We launch the app in their brand with a connected liquidity provider and a custody provider for the short time coins sit with the business. Every trade is stored as an exchange record, and every withdrawal carries the buyer's name, address and wallet details before it leaves. Each week the compliance officer runs the export of receipts that reach CAD 10,000 within 24 hours and files the reports.
A year later the team wants clients to keep crypto in the app. That is a different business under securities law, so the same platform becomes part of an application to CIRO.
For the registration itself, read our guide to MSB registration in Canada and our article on what crypto banking is.
Read the licence guides
FAQ
Yes. Dealing in virtual currencies, through exchange or transfer services, is an MSB activity under the PCMLTFA. Firms based abroad that direct these services at people in Canada register as foreign MSBs and carry the same obligations.
The CSA looks at whether clients get the crypto itself or only a claim on it. If the platform delivers coins promptly to a wallet the client controls, staff have said securities law generally does not apply. If you keep the coins for clients, you are treated as a crypto trading platform and need registration with the securities regulators.
Not as a new entrant. Since August 2024 the CSA no longer offers time-limited restricted dealer registration or accepts new pre-registration undertakings. New platforms apply to CIRO to register as investment dealers. Several platforms registered earlier still operate as restricted dealers under their existing decisions.
Your own. The Bank of Canada publishes no rates for virtual currency, so FINTRAC expects you to use the rate you set in the normal course of business and to describe how you set it in your compliance policies. The platform stores that rate on each transaction.
On a registered trading platform, only with the CSA's prior consent, and the issuer has to have given the CSA an undertaking. USDC and QCAD are among the stablecoins whose issuers have done so. The new Stablecoin Act will add Bank of Canada registration for issuers once it is in force.
Only if you perform payment functions with fiat money. Moving crypto alone falls outside the Retail Payment Activities Act. Holding CAD balances that clients use to pay others usually brings you in. Our RPAA guide explains the test.
No to both. Keys sit with the custody provider you contract, and reports are filed by your MSB. Crassula provides the apps, ledger, back office and exports those reports are built from.
