CIBC, Simplii Financial Launch Scheduled and Recurring Interac e-Transfers

CIBC announced on Monday it has launched new Interac e-transfer features for its personal banking customers, in the form of scheduled and recurring transfers for payments.

The financial institution says it is the first of Canada’s big five banks to offer the feature for personal customers.

The new feature means Interac e-Transfers can be scheduled up to five years in the future, for those with a CIBC Online Banking or CIBC Mobile Banking account.

“Enabling future-dated and recurring Interac e-Transfer transactions will allow our clients to put their payments on autopilot, saving time and avoiding the frustration of a missed payment,” said Chris Sweetland, Senior Vice-President, Payments Strategy and Transformation, in a statement. “Clients will no longer need to remember to write cheques or send money for regular payments such as rent or recurring services like babysitting or cleaning.”

CIBC says its recent analysis of its data reveals nearly 20% of existing Interac e-Transfers are recurring and over half of the customers surveyed said they believed scheduling would be a useful feature.

The bank says its new Interac e-Transfer features will allow you to:

• schedule weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, and annually recurring payments up to five years in the future
• view upcoming, successful and unsuccessful transactions
• cancel upcoming payments
• manage alerts for successful or unsuccessful payments

CIBC says there are over 2.5 million Interac e-Transfers used daily on average by Canadians.

Update: CIBC says similar Interac e-Transfer features have also debuted for its digital bank subsidiary, Simplii Financial:

• Schedule weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, and annual payments up to five years in the future;
• Review and manage Interac e-Transfer transactions;
• Cancel future payments, if required.