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Canada has gone for debit cards in a big way. I hardly ever pay cash for anything.

and my bank charges me 75 cents for every transaction that I do... therefore, I now use more cash that I ever did before... and my credit card, which doesn't charge any fee for every transaction...

Canada has gone for debit cards in a big way. I hardly ever pay cash for anything.

Our local public transit system is rolling out a smartcard fare system. On my way to work maybe one person a day pays their fare in cash. Yes, TransLink can track where I ride the bus. And if they ever misuse that information I'll ditch my current Compass card and buy an unregistered anonymous one.

...laura

We've been able to do this in Canada for quite a while now using Interac e-Transfer. http://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail

It's incredibly convenient, and only takes a few hours to transfer funds.

I've been largely cashless since the late 1980s.

I keep a few dollars in my purse for incidentals, but pay for almost everything else with my debit card. I pay all my bills on line. When I travel outside of Canada I use credit cards. The last time I used traveller's cheques was in 1986. I write one cheque a month, for my rent. The building managers would like to go electronic (they don't accept cash), but haven't come up with a good way to do so.

Cybercrime? My debit card has never been compromised, but I've had a couple of credit card incidents. One time I was wondering when my new Amex was going to arrive, and I got a phone call from their security department. Somebody had intercepted my new card and gone on a shopping spree. My bill came in a box that month. My liability was zero, since (unlike most other cards), American Express cards say "Not Transferable" on them, and if a merchant doesn't verify the identity of a man presenting a card that says "Laura" on it, that's their problem.

...laura

In Canada we have Interac. Many don't realize it, but every bank card in the country can be used to do online person-to-person money transfers without using Paypal.

Interac email money transfer forbids the use for any kind of business activity; it's strictly for consumers sending money to each other.

I think Interac disagrees with you :-)

I have a business. Can I receive Interac Email Money Transfer?

Some of our participating financial institutions have enabled the Interac Email Money Transfer service for their small business online banking customers. If you bank online at one of these institutions, you can send transfers to people or other small businesses; and you can deposit transfers from other people or other small businesses.

Note, however, that small business customers can only deposit transfers if they bank online at one of the participating financial institutions that has enabled Interac Email Money Transfer service for small businesses.

The US needs to get rid of their various walled gardens.

The US needs to adopt the Canadian solution - Interac email money transfer.

No credit card required, so nobody can "steal" your credit card information - OR your banking info - it's all hidden. Think of your bank acting as an email payment escrow service. Flat fee per transaction.

I thought the USA and perhaps other countries had what canada has for pretty much all Debit Cards... Interact

http://www.interac.ca/consumers/security_fraud.php

From the first paragraph of that FAQ

What we're doing about fraud

In 2009, $142 million was reimbursed to victims of fraud as a result of debit card skimming. Victims of debit card fraud are protected and will not suffer any financial losses resulting from circumstances beyond their control.

While debit card fraud represents a fraction of one percent of all transactions, Interac Association takes significant steps to prevent debit card fraud and protect cardholders. Interac Association works together with members and business partners to ensure that the Interac services remain among the most secure in the world. Following are some of the initiatives that Interac Association is involved with.

VISA et al seem to be trying to break into the Canadian market, which is fundamentally dominated by Interac, another PIN-based debit system run by a coalition of banks. Almost every merchant in Canada (or at least Ontario) have Interac POS readers. It should also be noted that most Canadian bank cards aren't backed by VISA / MasterCard (like they are in the United States), they're simply debit cards, linked directly to bank accounts.

I stole it. (They only look at the last name when they ask for ID, anyway.)

Plus, it boggles the mind that your nation still relies on horrendously-antiquated checks. We graduated from that over ten years ago now, and it's been almost a year since I saw anyone's checkbook in public.

You can already just email your money in Canada. Anyone use this service? http://www.interac.ca/consumers/productsandservices_ol_emt.php

Paypal and iTunes - now that's a marriage made in hell.

I can't wait until the day when everyone can accept email payments.

It has a lot of advantage when dealing with people you don't want to provide any permanent credentials, such as when buying something from an unknown individual or donating money to some organization, group, or charity.

Visa, at least, and probably the other cards by now, have a system where you can generate a single use credit card number pre authorized for specific merchant and dollar amount. So you can use that numbe in an online transaction and the merchant gets a number that's only valid for that single use single dollar amount. If it gets stolen, no big deal. If the merchant tries to double bill it, no dice. etc etc. And I trust Visa a lot more than Paypal.

I don't hate paypal, but I do dislike using it given all the limitations, fees, and scams. I also despise the ebay/paypal pairing.

As for egold... yeah total scam... it had potential...maybe something like it still does.

But I think the real juggernauts -- the banks -- still have to weigh in on this.

My bank recently introduced "Interac Email Money Transfer" and its pretty freaking impressive. I can send money to nearly anyone in Canada with a Canadian bank account, and an email address. We don't need to share bank information or personal information at all. All I need to know as the sender is the recipients email address -- any email address, they can even use a throw-away one as long as they can pick up email on it, and I don't need to know what bank they belong to as long as its participating in the Interac Email system which is currently the 5 major Canadian banks (TD, RBC, Scotia, CIBC, and BMO).

The price is a flat $1.50 per transaction, which is pretty steep to pay for a $10.00 ebay win... but a drop in the bucket when paying for a $500 transaction. There is no fee to receive money.

If they don't use one of the 5 participating banks, but have an account at, for example, a credit union, they can -still- receive money, but I think it gets redirected through a more complicated and time consuming inter-bank transfer, and there is a fee charged to the recipient.

For me this is the paypal killer. Not only is it secure convenient and trustworthy but banks and credit unions, at least in Canada are pretty customer service oriented...toll free 24-hour hot-lines, and genuinely useful staff are the norm in my experience with TD, RBC, and Scotiabank. Contrast that with Paypal. :)

Already for me, anything significant is now done via this interac system when I can. Once it expands to the credit unions and/or goes international... I think paypal and its cohorts will be reduced to competing for petty cash transactions and micropayments, e.g. sending sums like... $1 or $5, where the $1.50 fee is just too much.

but I wouldn't be surprised to see the interac system evolve and start offering 'plans' in addition to the a la cart flat fee.

For details check it out...

http://www.interac.ca/consumers/productsandservices_ol_emt.php ... not sure if something like this is in the states yet...

Not really. What could you do with his telephone (or online) banking PIN?

I see what your saying, but...
first of all, "credit cards will be shifting to smart cards". Umm, do you mean the smart card technology? Because smart cards would never replace credit cards. One is "money spent right now" whereas the other is "money spent when I get my bill"

Anyways, I don't think this is what Canada *needs*. Our Interac situation is very efficient, unfortunately a bit expensive if you are as addicted to it as I am. I spend approx $30/month in service charges with TDCT for "convenience". This always shocks americans.. I carry about 10% of the cash that I spend, I don't use (or even have) credit cards, and the only person who gets a cheque is my landlord. Oh, and the last time a pizza was delivered here, it was beep beepity beep too :) won't be doing that again though, those wireless transactions are 3 bucks a pop!

I found the article a bit confusing. It says:
the basic Moneo card is anonymous, there are no privacy or identity theft concerns.

Then they lost me at:

users can upload money from their bank accounts onto smart cards at special teller machines in banks and post offices. Conveniently, they can also refill the so-called stored value cards at any participating shop, supermarket, ticket booth or cinema, punching in a PIN number for security reasons.

ok no PIN is required for dispensing cash, but how is this card anonymous if you use a PIN to upload money onto it? PIN stands for Personal Identification Number the last time I checked.

Yeah, I can imagine there are problems with magnetic strips (my debit card has a lifespan of about 18 months), but I don't think this Interac thing will die off here, anytime soon. The banks have a pretty tight grip on the situtation here right now, and I definately can't see them giving us an option to reduce our costs (even if a smart card would). Like I said, I see what your saying.. and I agree with you that Canadians would use it, another payment option would never hurt. But, I don't think it would necessarily be better than Interac althought the technology of it certainly would.