Talk:Interac

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Online purchases?[edit]

Friends in Canada tell me that Interac does not allow Canadians to use their debit cards for internet purchases; certainly the Canadian Amazon site won't take them. If this is indeed so, it ought to be mentioned in this article (probably under "Services not offered..."), since it's a fairly major restriction; in a number of countries (such as here in Britain), debit cards are extremely popular for online shopping. Loganberry (Talk) 23:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed we cannot make purchases online with Interac - Interac is an immediate form of transaction. You have to type your pin number in for it to be accepted. The machine directly contacts your account and removes the money from it. - Anonymous

Interac can be used online. Interac Online Sample list of online retailers Participating Retailers Ice-Wolf 17:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Interac Online" is not the same product as "Interac" (the core-brand debit card system) or the Certapay e-mail transfer, even though they're promoted by the same firm. Every Canadian bank issues the debit card, but only some of the big five (and almost none of the small institutions) support this "Interac Online" - a very rarely-used service available at far fewer retailers. The core-brand product is an ATM-style debit card with a chip; it's inherently for card-present transactions only. It has pretty much killed supermarket-issued "cheque cashing cards" (the grocer has no reason to take a cheque if they can get paid in real time) but does nothing for MOTO vendors. K7L (talk) 02:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with a classic and obsolete type of debit card like Interac is that it is a regular batch ID card with whatever bank logo painted on it; it does not carry VISA nor MASTER logos, neither has those capabilities. Therefore, it does not have the convenience of a more secured and modern debit card like the ones I have used and seen from Bank of America in the USA and banks from DEVELOPING COUNTRIES in Central America. This is why these Canadian banks' Interac debit cards are not accepted for purchase over the internet; and they may not be welcomed at a merchant's POS machine overseas. These Interac debit cards are the type that Christopher Columbus used when he discovered Canada (a joke because he never did). I believe the main reason for local banks in Canada to protect their Interac system to the detriment of their own customers is because they do not want to pay royalties for using Visa or Mastercard; by this, they leave you no option but to apply for one of their Credit Card, which of course it is a much better business for them. One more thing I would like to add in case you have no credit at all, the only option left is the expensive rated Prepaid Credit Cards offered by banks like Bank of Montreal. Josh Selva[1] (Montreal, Quebec; Canada) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshselva (talk • contribs) 16:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Chargex and MasterCharge take a percentage of each transaction from the merchant, not just a fixed fee. Vendors selling large items on narrow margins (such as desktop PCs) competitively resent the added cost. They tolerate Visa/MC because they have to, but (like shoplifting) everyone pays. K7L (talk) 02:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Most major Canadian banks now have Visa debit cards that can be used online. They are connected to bank accounts via Interac and work exactly the same way as a credit card, only funds are withdrawn from bank account immediately. Works handy dandy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.157.171.231 (talk) 19:58, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interac Japan[edit]

I came to this article looking for the English training company from Japan. I was going to make a disambiguation link, but there's no article to link to and all I know about the company is that it exists.--Dustin Asby 20:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a link to their site http://www.interac.co.jp/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.20.24.69 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move, perfectly sensible request despite lack of participation. Duja►

Current Interac article does not assert importance of Interac in Japan vs. Interac in Canada for article naming convention. Furthermore, there is a large base of articles already linking to "Interac" only in reference to the Canadian company. Suggesting that the article be moved to "Interac (Japan)" and that "Interac Association" be moved back to "Interac" or that it becomes at least a disambiguation page. AirOdyssey (Talk) 23:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Removal of the "Criticisms" section[edit]

I've removed the "Criticisms" section from the article and moved it here for discussion. The removed text is as follows:

"One criticism of debit cards is that they slow down checkout lineups overall. When using a PSTN-based Interac terminal, the steps required to swipe the card, enter the PIN, and have the transaction verified and approved remotely can sometimes be significantly slower than a cash transaction, even when change must be fumbled with, or even a credit card transaction. Some merchants, such as Tim Hortons, openly refuse to accept IDP in most provinces for that reason.

Another criticism of debit cards is that they actually do not help with money management and actually mask the act of spending money. Consumers don't give or receive a tangible monetary device like paper or coin money and thus may find difficulty in tracking funds. Coupled with in some cases banking fees for using debit transactions, consumers may find it less significant to make several little electronic purchases throughout the day. The true cost is not fully appreciated until they receive their bank statement at the end of the month."

This section has no citations, borders on original research (re: wait times), and - as with most "Criticisms" sections - is open to abuse. Please don't interpret this as an attempt to censor critical assessments of the system - they certainly have a valid place in the article. However, such analysis, as with any information in a Wikipedia article, needs to come from a verified third-party source. Thoughts? --Ckatzchatspy 00:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. --GreenJoe 00:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One problem... by removing the "criticisms" and leaving a rather long laudatory section, the article is now imbalanced in such as way as to be tagged as "this section unduly promotional". K7L (talk) 02:42, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The bit about "wait times" is *not* original research... Timmy's at one point was prominently posting in-store signage claiming to not accept card payments for this very reason. That said, Tim Horton did reverse their stance when the RFID "tap and go" functionality was introduced, and Interac did buy adverts touting this fact. I've had at least one local merchant complain that RFID tap-and-go was actually costing them more per-transaction than chip-and-PIN on the same cards, but any discussion of point-of-sale debit for small (buck or two) transactions will need to be updated, with RFID "tap" transactions as the supposed game-changer. 66.102.87.40 (talk) 06:10, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interac used for more transactions than cash?[edit]

From the article:

Since its national launch in 1994, Interac Direct Payment has become so widespread that, since 2001, more transactions in Canada were completed using debit cards than cash.

This line appears to directly contradicts the statement from the Bank of Canada in 2011 when they launched the new $100 banknote <http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2011/11/speeches/bank-note-launch/>:

Reports of the death of cash are greatly exaggerated: Our research shows that cash is used for more than half of all shopping transactions.

While not explicitly stated, "our research" is presumably in reference to the 2009 Methods of Payment survey commissioned by the bank; an overview of which can be found at <http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2012/09/publications/research/discussion-paper-2012-6/>. From that paper:

Cash prevails for transactions up to $25, accounting for 76 per cent of all transactions below $15, and for 49 per cent of those in the $15 to $25 dollar range. Debit cards do not dominate in any transaction range, whereas credit cards clearly dominate payments above $50.

The cited article merely says that "IDP surpasses cash as Canadians' preferred way to pay for purchases." It doesn't seem to follow from the citation that more transactions in Canada were done using Interac than with cash. Draconx (talk) 17:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Deprecation of Interac Online[edit]

It appears that with the increased advent of co-badged cards in partnership with Visa and MasterCard, Interac Online (the online payment service, not the EMT service) is seeing a significant decrease in adoption. When going through the payment flow through an applicable merchant, Scotiabank and BMO are now unavailable, and logging into a TD account with an updated Visa co-badged card prevents use of this feature (older Interac-only cards will still function), meaning that the only major bank that still supports this feature fully is RBC. Some credit unions still support Interac Online. There is no good source that I can find for this other than going through the payment flow itself, so I will be adding the {{Update}} template to the relevant section. JaredTamana (talk) 12:19, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, RBC and TD look to have been the last two majors on Interac Online, and RBC is now dumping the product. According to https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/banking-services/interac-online.html "As of January 6 2023, RBC will no longer support the option to pay for online purchases using the Interac Online Payments service. If you use Interac Online Payment service to make CRA tax payments: You will be able to make tax payments to CRA using Interac Online Payment until May 30, 2023."
http://www.interaconline.com/consumers_where.php merely times out. It's great if the Anytown and Surrounding Farms Municipal Workers Credit Union is still offering this, but the lack of merchants accepting Interac Online has always been an Achilles heel (I've been able to use it twice - CRA on April 30th, and namesilo.com for domain names paid through PaymentWall) and the loss of the largest bank in the nation will likely be the final nail in Interac Online's coffin. I can't imagine them keeping this around just for us small credit union owners, given what happened with Hyperwallet (which the credit unions supported, but the big banks largely ignored in favour of Certapay/Interac e-transfer... which is not Interac Online). 66.102.87.40 (talk) 05:53, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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