Large Value Transfer System

The Large Value Transfer System, or LVTS, is a system in Canada for electronic wire transfers of large sums of money; it permits the participating institutions and their clients to send large sums of money securely in real-time with complete certainty that the payment will settle. LVTS processes the majority of payments made every day in Canada, and is designed to work with funds in Canadian dollars (CAD). On a normal business day, it clears and settles approximately CAD $153.5 billion. Frequently, when settling the payments made through LVTS between each other, some banks find themselves with extra funds, while others find themselves short; to come up with money, the banks can borrow it from each other for a day, or "overnight". The rate at which they borrow is called overnight rate, targets for which are set by the Bank of Canada as part of its monetary policy.

LVTS is a real-time payment system: the recipient of the payment receives it irrevocably in near real-time, but it settles on a deferred net basis at the end of each day, so it is not a real-time gross settlement system.[1]

Payments Canada are developing a replacement system, Lynx.