Jeremy Wilmot
President and CEO at Interac
Together, we can build a world-leading digital economy here in Canada.
What’s our role at Interac?
Interac as
Leveraging our central place in the Canadian economy, we’re working with our partners to lead the charge on innovations that will help accelerate Canadian businesses — from digital verification to real-time payments.
At Interac we help safeguard personal data through digital verification, and we use our unique position at the nexus of billions of transactions to help defend against digital fraud.
Our payment and verification platforms help create opportunities for businesses across sectors to innovate and grow, while empowering Canadians to confidently interact and engage in their digital lives.
How can
Canada lead in a 'digital everything' future?
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Population Serving a diverse and growing Canada
Fraud and Security Protecting digital interactions and data privacy
Entrepreneurship Digital tools built for growth
Digital Commerce Unlocking the possibilities of instant payments
Digital Trust Building confidence in digital systems
Digital Prosperity Equal access to digital opportunity
“Digital prosperity is a vision in which everyone, regardless of their background or circumstance, has equal access to the benefits of the digital ecosystem.”
Jeremy Wilmot
President and CEO at Interac
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“We need strong digital guardrails to protect data. Because trust is essential to society and to individuals — but it is fleeting right now.”
Ann Cavoukian
Founder and CEO, Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre, Former Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
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“Today’s adult generations are going to have to adapt much quicker to what's next, because the younger generations are going to already be there.”
David Coletto
Founder, Chair & CEO of Abacus Data
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“We’re discovering how powerful small and medium businesses are in this country, and how flexible and adaptable and agile.”
Manjit Minhas
Co-founder & CEO at Minhas Breweries, Distillery and Winery
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“Money should enable value exchange at ever-increasing velocity. Greater velocity unlocks new revenue channels for your business, and new product experiences.”
Scott McDonald
President of The Future of Money
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“We're committed to supporting businesses and Canadians with accessible, efficient financial and verification tools.”
Debbie Gamble
Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Interac
Read full interview40 years of digital innovations that Canadians rely on every day — and a look forward to milestones on the road to a more prosperous digital future.
Interac founded
Canada’s major financial institutions join forces to establish a national network of automated banking machines (ABM’s), so customers can withdraw cash from any participating ABM.
First steps for Interac Debit
A pilot program allows Canadians to use their debit cards to pay at point-of-sale using the money in their banking accounts. (Fast forward to 2023: Canadians completed 6.6 billion transactions on the Interac Debit platform.)
Interac e-Transfer arrives
Debut of Interac e-Transfer, one of the world’s first peer-to-peer electronic money transfer services.
Interac Debit enables contactless payments
Contactless payments arrive: Canadians can now pay using their Interac Debit card with just a tap.
Canadians use Interac Debit on their phones
Interac Debit enables Canadians to load their debit card into their mobile wallet and tap to pay.
Interac e-Transfer gets enhanced features for business
Interac e-Transfer for Business is launched, offering business-friendly features like data-rich payments and higher transaction limits.
Interac Verified introduced
Interac expands into verification solutions in Canada with the launch of Interac Verified — which includes Interac verification service, Interac document verification service, and Interac sign-in service, all under the Interac Verified umbrella.
Interac celebrates 40 years
With a new three-year strategy, Interac will continue to drive innovation in payments, verification, and fraud prevention, collaborating with partners to build the infrastructure critical to Canada’s growth in a competitive digital world.
Digital Prosperity
Equal access to digital opportunity
Q: How can digital innovation give Canada an edge?
Digitalization plays a critical role in all modern economies. It’s all about accelerating the ability of businesses and consumers to operate seamlessly in the digital world. That gives businesses a competitive edge. The great news is that Canada has a lot of the digital infrastructure in place today.
I feel Canada’s at this inflection moment; we’re on the cusp of something really great. Canada has an incredibly strong financial system and is respected on the global stage. We’ve got an opportunity to bring some new services to market over the next few years that could really make a difference to economic growth, and to people’s lives and businesses.
Q: What will the outcomes of this transformation be?
We think it’s realistic to expect to see Canada’s improved productivity, faster delivery of new services, and a more seamless and frictionless financial and payment system, in part thanks to services that Interac would provide to businesses and to consumers.
Q: How would you define the role Interac is playing?
Our North Star is to lead Canadians to digital prosperity. It means that we enable secure, seamless transactions for Canadians in a fully digital world. And it enables Canadian consumers and businesses to thrive and not to be threatened or vulnerable.
Fraud and security
Protecting digital interactions and data privacy
Ann Cavoukian
Founder and CEO, Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre, Former Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
Q: Why do you believe the public’s trust of new technologies is a challenge for the digital economy?
Trust is at an all-time low. There is such a trust deficit right now, and if we don’t address these issues now, we’re going to lose it. And that is completely unacceptable because trust is essential to us. You cannot have free and open societies without a solid foundation of trust and privacy.
Q: Do you think Canadians are becoming more conscious of fraud and the risks around sharing their sensitive and personal data?
I think more people are slowly realizing the risks because there have been so many data breaches. But they don’t know what to do. They’re in this terrible place: Everyone communicates online, and they don’t want to stop communicating with their friends, their colleagues, or family. But they want to prevent unauthorized third parties from gaining access to their data. There’s no question we absolutely need protections. You need to be able to protect your data and exert some control over it.
Q: How can a business benefit if it takes customers’ data security seriously?
If you are one of the companies that can address people’s concerns, you’ll have way more customers. Your business will grow dramatically. I work with lots of companies, and I’ve seen this. Your business can attract new customers as well as retain the customers you have. And you can take pride in what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. It’s something I would like more companies to actually do.
Population
Serving a diverse and growing Canada
David Coletto
Founder, Chair & CEO of Abacus Data
Q: How will the face of Canada’s population change over the coming years and decades?
The most important demographic trend is Canada’s aging. The number of Canadians aged 85 and older, according to StatCan’s estimate, is going to triple over the next 10 years. And in order to sustain our population and continue to see it grow, we’re going to have to welcome millions of new people into the country. The result is we are going to see a more diverse population, moving to largely urban centres. So we’re going to continue to see urbanization in Canada, with a population that’s more diverse than it ever has been.
Q: What does “digital prosperity” mean to you?
I see it as a world of empowered individuals and businesses. I see it as allowing people to control their finances, their health, their learning with tools that are personalized to them, which then makes them more productive; it makes them more passionate about what they do; it increases the efficiency at which we do it. It also makes people happier and healthier, which further amplifies that prosperity.
Q: How does digital technology help accommodate a more diverse population?
In a more diverse market, you need services to be more personalized in order to better serve everybody. Technological evolution has created the opportunity for us to cater to a more diverse population, and for it not to create as much friction [and avoid people feeling] left out of processes and institutions. You can be far more customer-centric in a digital world than you can in an analog one: Everybody can be served in a way that they want to be served.
Entrepreneurship
Digital tools built for growth
Manjit Minhas
Co-founder & CEO at Minhas Breweries, Distillery and Winery
Q: Why do you think it’s so important for small- and medium-sized businesses to invest in digital technology?
Every business has to be rooted in technology to succeed now and in the future. You need to start investing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to do repetitive tasks in order to do it quicker, faster, cheaper, and more reliably. Everything from invoicing to payments, accounts receivable (AR), accounts payable (AP) — all the things that aren’t necessarily fun, but everybody’s got to do them — why not do it with some precision to help your productivity, efficiency and accuracy?
Q: What qualities should digital tools have if they’re going to power growing Canadian businesses?
They need to be timely. That’s super important. They need to not have delays, which hinder businesses’ growth, but also their risk-taking ability, their understanding of their buying power. As an SMB owner I have to know that if I’m receiving money, it is there. If I’m sending money, it’s there. I have to know that my credentials, my personal information, my biographical data isn’t being leaked; it’s safe. Security should be embedded in the service, and not be something that we have to pay extra for. Technology shouldn’t cost a fortune. And it should offer simplicity — be easy to use, easy to understand.
Q: With the right digital tools, do you think Canada can be a leader in a digital age?
Yes. We have smart people. We have a lot of technologies that we’re generating and supporting here. Everything from cyber security to quantum computing to new technologies in banking to robotics and AI. The digital transformation is happening. We’ve got so much here in this country.
Digital commerce
Unlocking the possibilities of instant payments
Scott McDonald
President of The Future of Money
Q: Do you think Canada can learn from other countries’ digital payment experiences?
Most Canadians, until something doesn’t work, don’t really know that there’s a better way. But when you’re outside Canada, from Brazil to northwestern Africa to Singapore, there’s so many payment experiences that are account-to-account, peer-to-peer that just work great. And then you have that experience and think, “OK, Canada probably is a little bit behind on where we need to be.”
Q: Are you hopeful that we’ll catch up?
Canada is now in the fortunate situation of being able to, as [Interac CEO] Jeremy Wilmot says, leapfrog and put world-leading new systems in place. The Payments Canada partnership with Interac to help build the Real-Time Rail is fantastic and welcome news, and will provide experiences for end users that will delight them. Many won’t even know there was something wrong in the old system. But they certainly won’t want to go back to it once they get to know the new.
Q: What do you think this near future of payments will look like?
Daylight business hours with overnight settlement will be replaced by an always-on, always-secure smart grid across your channels. This will turn every customer, every supplier, every merchant into a 24-hour terminal — unlocking a level of personalization hitherto impossible.
Digital Trust
Building confidence in digital systems
Debbie Gamble
Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Interac
To mark our 40th anniversary, Interac invited leading Canadian thinkers to help envision a future of digital prosperity. Click on each speaker to get a sense of their perspective.
Not only did I enjoy hearing their insights, I was struck by how often certain themes kept coming up: Canadians enjoy the conveniences of a digital lifestyle, but they’re wary of how their data is being used. This is fraying their trust in technology; new technologies will have to mend it. Canadian businesses will realize their potential if they enjoy access to instant, reliable, secure and low-cost digital tools for payments and verification. And finally, Canada has the necessary assets and advantages to “leapfrog” other economies by building systems and solutions that are both fair and fast.
These thoughts align with the approach we’ve taken at Interac through 40 years of introducing Canadians to innovative new ways of interacting and transacting. We embrace trust, inclusion, ubiquity, simplicity and low fees. And we’re following these principles as we work on innovations still to come.
Population
Serving a diverse and growing Canada
“Because the rate of change in daily life is getting exponentially faster, people are going to be looking for a sense of security that that change isn’t going to wash them away and leave them worse off than they are today. And they’ll want to know that they have some agency and control over their lives.”
David Coletto
Founder, Chair & CEO of Abacus Data
Fraud and Security
Protecting digital interactions and data privacy
“I have great hope for the future. I think digital interaction is going to keep getting better, but in order to do that, we have to start from a place where we can protect the essentials of data. I want to embed trust in our future digital systems to make it a win-win. We can do this as long as we treat privacy and security respectfully and have it go hand-in-hand with the business interests. Let’s make it happen.”
Ann Cavoukian
Founder and CEO, Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre, Former Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
Entrepreneurship
Digital tools built for growth
“It’s important to give small and medium-sized Canadian businesses reliable digital tools to make their transactions — for them to do it quicker, efficiently, and also to be able to plan. To have line of sight to plan is the bedrock of any business, in order for them to be able to pay their employees, get their ingredients, pay their rent, pay their payroll.”
Manjit Minhas
Co-founder & CEO at Minhas Breweries, Distillery and Winery
Digital Commerce
Unlocking the possibilities of instant payments
“The road ahead for Canada is being paved by the high-speed rails of instantaneous payments. This will represent a fundamental change in how your business reaches and serves your customers.”
Scott McDonald
President of The Future of Money
Digital Trust
Building confidence in digital systems
“To create more prosperous lives for Canadians, I hope more companies will embrace the potential of technology to empower workers and enhance productivity. Canada’s fundamental promise of inclusivity and prosperity aligns with the potential offered by advancements including faster peer-to-peer payments, digital authentication and verification.”
Debbie Gamble
Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Interac
Digital Prosperity
Equal access to digital opportunity
“We have a major opportunity to elevate digital experiences for businesses across industries in Canada, from enhancing the e‑commerce checkout experience and enabling account-based payments to driving real-time money movement across the economy. Crucially, these innovations must be verified and protected with advanced fraud detection and prevention measures.”
Jeremy Wilmot
President and CEO at Interac