Explore Accelerating Canada’s Digital Future, the 2023 Interac Corporate Year in Review
Interac has long been a pioneer in empowering seamless digital payment experiences and enhancing security for Canadians. As financial challenges and uncertainty loom, we remain steadfast in our aim to make it easier for more Canadian customers and businesses to actively participate in the digital economy – and in a way that powers their success.
For Canada to be a digital ‘everything’ economy, every Canadian must be able to participate everywhere. Backed by a long history of innovating for Canadians, our vision for 2024 is clear: to enable a more accessible and secure digital economy for all Canadians. Fuelled by a strong culture and talented workforce, the robust growth we experienced in 2023 demonstrates the relevance, necessity, and value of our mission.
I joined Interac as its CEO because I’m passionate about Canada’s potential as a global leader of the digital economy. I believe that we have all the necessary building blocks in place to become a country at the forefront of creating accessible, secure, and cutting-edge financial innovation.
But there is still work to be done. Canada must accelerate digitization if we hope to keep pace internationally. We must embrace the possibilities of the next stage of the digital economy – a more open era which welcomes new players and greater choice, enabled by real-time flows and new ways to pay.
At Interac, we see this as an exciting opportunity to carve out a path for Canadians to excel through greater and more convenient access to secure digital services. We are proud to be a brand that holds the trust of Canadians, and can partner with them on that journey – sustaining their confidence as we make critical advances.
We are working hard to broaden access to Interac products for more Canadians and businesses alike. Building on the important work of my predecessor, Mark O’Connell, we moved the needle in 2023. We enabled additional types of financial institutions to participate in the Interac e-Transfer® service, with Wealthsimple receiving provisional approval to join over 280 financial institutions in enabling customers to send, request and receive money between accounts. Request to Pay, a newer feature of Interac e-Transfer, grew 280% in 2023. By extending our trusted products and platforms while maintaining high security standards, we are empowering Canadian consumers to transact in new ways.
Businesses also stand to gain from more efficient, secure ways of working, paying and receiving money. Amid rising costs pressuring businesses to shed outdated practices and inefficiencies, the imperative of financial transformation towards faster digital payment methods is gaining prominence among Canada’s business leaders. Businesses are shifting to digital payments, with half of businesses in Canada accepting this service as a method of payment. This year we processed more than 1 million Bulk business transactions each month.
From settling an invoice to paying a transit fare, digital payments should function as a seamless part of our everyday lives – removing friction and promoting ease. As Canadians have returned to life on the go, we see the value of contactless payments in increasing the accessibly of transit systems, making it easier for people to connect to their loved ones, their workplaces and their communities. Canadians completed over 6.5 billion Interac Debit transactions in 2023, with a 49.5% year-over-year growth of mobile Debit transactions. This is partly fueled by the launch of Debit as a contactless payment option for transit riders across some of Canada’s largest transit authorities, including those in Toronto and Quebec.
In expanding the opportunities for mobile contactless payments, we are responding to the changing habits of Canadians. Our research shows that nearly eight in 10 (78 per cent) Gen Z adults pay using their smartphone, well ahead of older demographics including their parents’ generation, Gen X (42 per cent.) For the first time ever, over one billion of these mobile transactions have taken place within a 12-month period. There was a 53 per cent jump in the use of Interac Debit for mobile contactless payments in stores and a 17 per cent surge in its use for e-Commerce purchases between August 2022 and July 2023.
Amid surging digital transactions, consumers and businesses alike must feel confident that their data will be safeguarded. At Interac, Canadians’ security is our top priority. In May 2023, we launched Interac Verified, the new name for our verification business arm. This marked an important moment in our corporate evolution, cementing our focus beyond payments, helping Canadians to securely engage in an expanded range of digital contexts. Interac Verified delivers shared value that no single entity can provide alone: connecting consumers, businesses and governments to improve security, efficiency, and convenience, while reducing risk and fraud. With more than 500 million transactions across our suite of services since launch, Canadians now have a partner they know and trust to verify and authenticate themselves online, just as they have relied on Interac for innovative ways to pay and get paid.
Interac also demonstrated leadership in our work with government and external stakeholders to advance policy and regulatory updates that support a vibrant and innovative payments and financial services ecosystem. In 2023 we supported conversations with Finance Canada regarding a consumer-driven banking framework, and joined with industry stakeholders to call for the inclusion of amendments to the Canadian Payments Act to enable broadened access to national payment infrastructure for organizations seeking registration under the Retail Payment Activities Act. Additionally, we continue to work with the Bank of Canada following the designations of both Interac e-Transfer and InteracDebit as Prominent Payment Systems, reflecting their central role in the Canadian economy and ensuring they are secure and trusted platforms for Canadians.
To position our organization for the future growth needed to compete in an evolving ecosystem, Interac embarked on a transformation to redesign our structure and become more agile and responsive to customers and end users. Our new operating model will enable us to scale quickly, quicken our delivery to market and increase our resiliency. By the end of our 2023 fiscal year we completed the design of the first two layers of our new four-layer organization, and FY24 will be about finalizing the full design and operationalizing the new, more nimble, structure. Embedding Agile methodology into everything we do will open new opportunities to interact with our customers and create shared successes that advance our vision for the digital economy.
Our successes in 2023 are built on the foundation of our brand – one that is lived each day by our employees and represented through our always-on products and services. Named as the most trusted financial services brand in Canada for 2023, one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures in 2023, and one of Toronto’s top employers for 2024, Interac remains a truly Canadian brand and an important part of Canada’s social and economic fabric. As we look to 2024, we’re excited to continue contributing, innovating and advancing our vision for a more equitable, secure and accessible digital economy – for all Canadians.
