Being from Brazil I'm well aware of the shortcomings of Interac!

Its early to say if this new payment system will be "Canada's Pix" or not, but to me it seems that's the direction they're going:

- The release statement takes great pains to make it clear the payment system is "instantaneous" or "within a few seconds", unlike Interac - Same ISO standard as Pix - Some sort of centralization (they just say "centralized fraud prevention"; I'm assuming that means some sort of BoC coordination. Also: "exchanges flowing through the clearing and settlement component")

And most importantly, unlike Interac (a private company), this comes from a quasi-public company with a clear government mandate.

I think your two points will, in this case, be a question for the financial institutions and fintechs who jump onboard here. RTR won't be immediately consumer-visible, but if FinTech A starts offering some consumer-facing elements ala UPI/Pix using their newfound access to RTR to bypass the traditional banking system and settle directly, then we get there. I'd look at this as not a consumer product, but a scaffold that allows consumer products to be built ontop of a new system that should, hopefully, allow an end-run around the stuffy traditional infra that is Canadian banking.