Canadians Have Used Nearly 50 Million Interac e-Transfers in Q1 of 2017

Interac has announced it will be working with Canadian startups OpenSports, Dibbzz and Navi to “enable easier and faster payment experiences for their customers,” after the three companies were selected at the Collision Day challenge at Communitech last week, as the best pitches to implement the new Interac e-Transfer third party API.

Interac e transfer

Debbie Gamble, VP Product and Platform Development, Interac Association and Acxsys Corporation, said in a statement, “We are thrilled to provide the winners with an initial cash injection to help develop their prototypes and, perhaps more importantly, will work closely with them over the next year to help bring their solutions to market.”

Eight startups participated in the challenge, with app OpenSports taking the top prize, Dibbzz in second and Navi in third. OpenSports demonstrated how they would integrate the Interac API with their sports app which connects organizers with players, making for easy requesting and receiving of funds for organizers.

Gamble also revealed Interac e-Transfers continue to rise, with Canadians using close to 50 million transactions alone in the first three months of the year. The transaction volume is on pace to surpass last year’s record 158 million e-Transfers, with nearly 70% of these notifications received on a mobile or smartphone.

“We’re always looking for ways to make online money movement even easier, which includes partnering with the community to make sure we continue to meet the needs and expectations of Canadians,” said Gamble.

With Apple again rumoured to launch a peer-to-peer money transfer service this year, Interac, which is owned by Canada’s big banks, looks to stay on pace as the money transfer service to use.

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