The nursing crunch is easing, but staffing challenges remain in remote areas - Statistique Canada

Open this photo in gallery:Canada and the EU are working to modernize the electronic systems that their businesses and people use to move money. Omar Havana/The Associated PressCanada and the European Union plan to link next-generation payment systems to enable faster cross-border transactions, according to a draft joint statement prepared for a summit between Ottawa and Brussels later this month. This will help remove obstacles to business and investment between the two jurisdictions, according to the statement, an early version of a summit communiqué that was viewed by The Globe and Mail. It adds that the new partnership will be called an “Alliance for the Future.”The draft statement doesn’t detail what next-generation payment systems include, but this term has been used by others to refer to a major upgrade of a country’s core payment infrastructure, usually built around real-time payments. The core infrastructure is a central set of systems that clear and settle payments between financial institutions.