Interac e-Transfer

Interac e-Transfer

Formerly	Interac Email Money Transfer
Industry	Funds transfers
Headquarters	Canada
Parent	Interac Corporation
Website	interac.ca/en/interac-e-transfer-consumer

Interac e-Transfer (formerly Interac Email Money Transfer) is a funds transfer service between personal and business accounts at participating Canadian banks and other financial institutions, offered through Interac Corporation.

From inception until early 2018, the service was provided by Acxsys, a for-profit consortium backed by most of the major partners of the nonprofit Interac Association, and using the Interac brand under licence. In February 2018, the activities of both organizations were combined into a single for-profit organization under the Interac name.^[1]

Participating institutions

Most Canadians who use online banking can send funds. These include personal deposit account holders with the big five banks, Desjardins, Tangerine, National Bank, President's Choice Financial, and many credit unions and other institutions,^[2] as well as some small-business account holders.^[3] In 2015, 105 million money transfers were sent using the platform totaling over CA$44 billion in value.^[4]

Any personal account holder in Canada can receive funds.

How it works

An e-Transfer resembles an e-check in many respects. The money is not actually transferred by e-mail. Only the instructions to retrieve the funds are.

• The sender opens an online banking session and chooses the recipient, the amount to send, as well as a security question and answer. The funds are debited instantly, usually for a surcharge. The sender sends the security answer separately to the recipient, usually through another medium outside of the e-mail as a secondary security measure.
• An e-mail or text message is then sent to the recipient, with instructions on how to retrieve the funds and answer the question, via a secure website.
• The recipient must answer the security question correctly. (If the recipient fails to answer the question correctly after three tries, then the funds will automatically be returned to sender.^[5])
  • If the recipient is subscribed to online banking at one of the participating institutions, the funds are deposited instantly at no extra charge.
  • If the recipient's deposit account is not at one of the participating institutions or not subscribed to online banking at all, the funds are deposited within three to five business days, and a surcharge (currently $4.00) is deducted from the amount received.
• The Autodeposit feature allows senders to send money and be received by the recipient without the recipient having to answer a security question. The recipient must enable this feature in their account settings. Not all banks offer this feature.

Benefits and disadvantages

Unlike a cheque, the funds from an e-Transfer are not frozen in the recipient's account. An e-Transfer cannot bounce, as the funds are guaranteed, having been debited from the sender's account immediately upon initiating the transfer. As long as both sender and recipient bank are participating institutions, the funds are sent and received instantly. However in some cases, for example two people with different banking institutions, transfers may take anywhere between near instant, or up to a few hours for the receiving party to get their emailed notice.

However, like any online banking mode of payment, e-Transfers are vulnerable to phishing. Many Canadians in areas where the Big Five banks have little presence or who do not bank online are penalized by a surcharge when receiving e-Transfers. Unlike a real giro, an e-Transfer requires intervention from the recipient for every single transaction. An e-Transfer goes stale much faster than a cheque (after 30 days, the e-Transfer is automatically cancelled and the sender is notified by e-mail to retrieve the funds).^[6]

See Also

• Electronic funds transfer

References

External links

• Official website