TORONTO - Interac Corp. says it has launched a new offering that gives Canadians more ways to pay for online purchases including directly through their bank account.
The company says the Konek payment solution is gradually being rolled out with Staples.ca as its first client, while for customers, access is limited for now to those who bank at BMO, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank or TD Canada Trust.
The option allows shoppers to pay through their debit or credit cards, or directly from their chequing, savings or line of credit accounts.
Purchases through bank accounts or a line of credit are being done through Interac Direct, which it says is a new digital payments solution with lower merchant fees.
Interac says it created the option in collaboration with Canadian financial institutions to offer more choices in how people pay online, while also lowering cart abandonment.
Kris Zanuldin, head of Konek, says in a statement that it offers a secure, homegrown alternative to international e-commerce payment solutions.
This news is music to my ears. I can’t wait to test it out!
I mean I can already pay with my bank account online. Debit card acts as a MasterCard.
Right but you have MasterCard as a US Middleman.
He said bank account online and debit card, but you chose to hear MasterCard.
No I’m still correct, he said he uses his debit card to pay online for items since it “acts like a MasterCard”, and that’s because MasterCard (American) handles the transaction, not Interac (Canadian). He may also be using his bank account online for bill payments (Interac / Canadian) but that’s not purchases but usually PAD.
“No I’m still correct” - Is that how you passed your high school exams? If only it that easy huh? LOL The American part is not what he was referring to.
Sorry American part of what, MasterCard, or the MasterCard debit card? I’m genuinely curious now.
How is this better than what already exist?
It will be good for merchants who want to pay lower fees than they currently do to Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Stripe, et cetera. All of these are American companies as well so customers and merchants can keep more money in Canada. On the outset to me, it kind of sounds like Interac e-transfer reconstituted into secure e-commerce transactions.
Give us a small discount to demonstrate the point.
Right, but Canada is small enough that none of the large merchants are going to implement this, are they? Interac already has a payments API, and I’ve only ever encountered it used in the wild once.
Almost sounds like fintech similar to what one might see in Singapore in their NETS system. I think this Konek system is designed to give Canadians an alternative payment system independent of Visa and Mastercard, while offering businesses and customers reduced transaction rates.
Unfortunately, though, we don’t have the population of Singapore. While I would love this to work, I just don’t see merchants implementing yet another payment provider.
Wait, Canada doesn’t have 6.1 million people? What?
For some reason I had Singapore in my head as being way larger like Japan or Korea.
