Department of Finance Canada announced Budget 2025 measures aimed at fraud, financial scams, and economic abuse.
The department said the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reported $643 million in losses to fraud in 2024, almost 300 per cent higher than in 2020.
Finance Canada also said only 5 to 10 per cent of scams are reported.
Budget 2025 would introduce Canada's first whole-of-government National Anti-Fraud Strategy.
As a first step, the government plans legislative amendments requiring banks to have policies to prevent and address fraud while giving consumers more control over their bank accounts.
Finance Canada said the only federal legislative consumer-protection requirement currently aimed at fraud is a $50 limit on consumer liability for unauthorized credit-card transactions.
The government also plans to create a Financial Crimes Agency to investigate complex money laundering, organized criminal activity, online financial scams, and recovery of illicit proceeds.
Finance Canada said legislation to create the agency would be introduced by spring 2026.
Another measure is a voluntary Code of Conduct for the Prevention of Economic Abuse, overseen by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.
The measures would give banks, regulators, and enforcement agencies a larger role in detecting fraud, limiting consumer losses, investigating financial crime, and responding to economic abuse.