Interac e-Transfer

Interac e-Transfer is a Canadian money transfer service that lets people send funds directly between bank accounts using an email address or mobile number. It launched in 2003 as Interac Email Money Transfer, a product of Acxsys Corporation, a for-profit consortium backed by major members of the nonprofit Interac Association. The service used the Interac brand under license and quickly became a common way for Canadians to split bills, pay rent, or send money to family without sharing banking details.

For its first 15 years, Acxsys ran the e-Transfer business while the Interac Association managed the underlying debit network. That split ended in February 2018, when the two organizations merged into a single for-profit entity called Interac Corp. The consolidation simplified governance and allowed the company to invest in faster transfers, request-money features, and business payments.

Today, Interac e-Transfer connects more than 250 Canadian financial institutions. Users send money through online or mobile banking, and recipients deposit it into their own account by answering a security question or, increasingly, through auto-deposit. The service competes with PayPal, Venmo-style apps, and bank-specific transfers, but its tight integration with Canadian banks has kept it dominant for domestic person-to-person payments. It is not a household name outside Canada, but within the country it handles billions of dollars annually and has become a default tool for casual and business transactions alike. [edit]