Beginners Guide to Interac & Where It’s Used
Interac e-Transfer is a convenient and fast way to send and receive money in Canada. It’s used by the vast majority of Canadians and partnered with over 250 financial institutions. Since 2003, Interac has allowed Canadians to digitally send money to friends, businesses, charities, and much more.
In this guide, we’ll explore Interac in-depth: from how to use it to where to use it.
What is Interac?
Interac is not a separate app like PayPal, but rather the service that online banking applications use to support digital transfers. Transactions aren’t performed through a secondary ‘wallet’, but instead through your banking institution’s website or application.
If you bank with a participating financial institution, you should simply be able to select to send an ‘Interac e-transfer’ from within your bank’s digital platform.
What can you use Interac for?
On a basic level, Interac is mostly used to send and receive money between friends and family, co-workers, businesses, and so on. However, there are many other purposes that Interac can be used for, including the following:
Online casinos
If you gamble online, Interac can be used to keep your transactions private. The best Interac casinos listed by Techopedia allow you to withdraw and deposit money without having to provide banking information. This keeps your online gambling transactions private. Plus, the sites selected by Ciaran McEneaney each have a wide selection of casino games and offer large bonuses.
Business payments
If you run your own business, you can use Interac to receive payments from customers and make payments to suppliers. Interac’s fast transactions make it a great option for keeping on top of your business billing and financial management.
Contactless payments
Interac can support contactless payments through its Flash feature. This allows users to make quick transactions by simply tapping their debit card on the card reader. It works similar to MasterCard’s PayPass.
Online shopping
Interac Online is a real-time payment solution that allows users to complete online transactions, which makes things easier for Canada’s 27 million e-commerce users.
Request money
You can initiate payments from peers by selecting the ‘Request Interac e-Transfer’ option within your banking application. This will allow you to send a money request to an individual via Interac.
Which banks participate?
Interac can be used via a participating online banking service. Popular participating banking institutions include the Bank of Montreal (BMO), the Royal Bank of Canada (RBO), and Scotiabank. In total, there are over 250 Canada-based financial institutions that participate with Interac. This wide participation allowed for 6.5 billion Interac debit transactions to take place in 2023.
How to set up Interac
Once logged into your online banking account, select “Interac e-Transfer”. Depending on your financial institution, this option may be on your banking main menu. Alternatively, you should find it listed under your Email Money menu.
If it’s your first time using the Interac e-Transfer feature, you’ll likely next need to input some personal details, such as your name, email address, and phone number. However, this information may already be present on your mobile banking application. First-time users will also need to read and agree to terms and conditions.
Once your Interac account is set up and verified, you can start sending and receiving money. You can also start adding recipient emails and phone numbers to create a contact list.
How to send money using Interac
On the Interac section of your mobile bank application, select “send money”. If you’ve already added the recipient to your contact list, you should be able to select their name from a drop-down menu. If not, you’ll need to “add new contact”.
Next, choose the account you wish to send money from - i.e., your personal account or your business account. You’ll then be prompted to type in or select how much money you wish to send.
Lastly, you’ll need to set up a security question for the recipient (unless your recipient is using Interac’s Auto Deposit service). You should send the answer to your recipient so that they can answer the question successfully. Failure to answer the question will result in the funds not being transferred.
How to use Interac to receive money
When you’re the recipient of an Interac transfer, you’ll receive a text message to confirm this. You can then log into your bank account and answer the security question attached to the transfer. Pick the account you’d like the money to land in and click “accept” to receive the money.
Final Thoughts
Interac is a straightforward means of sending and receiving money if you live in Canada. Most major banking institutions participate with the service, meaning there’s a good chance that your personal bank account will be able to send and receive money via Interac.
