Interac has released its stats for 2018, its findings show a 54 percent increase in transactions from 2017. Between consumers and businesses, more than 371 million Interac e-Transfer transactions occurred in Canada last year.
Comparatively, 241 million e-Transfers occurred in 2017, with close to 158 million e-Transfer transactions in 2016.
“The growth of Interac e-Transfer demonstrates Canadians’ preference for digital transfer services as an alternative to cash or cheque.”
The total value of the transactions also went up, with 2018’s transactions totaling more than $132 billion. This represents a 45 percent increase in value from 2017, which came to a total of $92 billion.
Canadians have also been using e-Transfers more often on a day-to-day basis. In 2018, transactions averaged over a million times a day, while 2017 saw Canadians using e-Transfer about 660,000 times a day. Businesses accounted for one in six transactions on the platform, over both years.
The vast majority of those transactions are deposited on a mobile device. About three in four consumers deposit transactions using their phone. In addition, over half of transactions are under $200, with the average size for e-Transfers being $357. These stats are similar to those from 2017.
Interac stated that 80 percent of Canadians using online banking registered to use e-Transfer, with the number of unique active users doubling from 2017 to 2018. Interac quotes 7.4 million users each month for 2017, while in 2018, Interac now has over 15 million active users per month.
Despite the increase in user, the average number of transactions per month stayed consistent for both years, with users sending over three transactions monthly.
RELATED: Report: Consumers and businesses made over 241 million Interac e-Transfer transactions in 2017
Businesses, however, are using Interac’s Bulk Disbursement feature to send out payments in volumes. In 2018, businesses sent over $465 million using Bulk Disbursement (a secure way to send large payments in a single file upload).
Interac also noted found in its report that November 30 was the platform’s busiest day in 2018, with over two million transactions sent.
“The continued adoption and significant year-over-year growth of Interac e-Transfer demonstrates Canadians’ preference for convenient digital money transfer services like Interac e-Transfer as an alternative to cash or cheque,” said Anurag Kar, director of digital push payments at Interac.
In June, Interac announced the launch of the Interac Lab in Communitech, for the support of research and development of Interac’s next generation of products and services. In 2016, after the introduction of Apple Pay, Interac developed Interac TSP, a service allowing Canadian debit holders to make debit payments with their mobile device.
Featured image via Pixabay.
