Interac

Interac Association

Operating area	Canada
Members	83
ATMs	59,000
Founded	1984
Website	http://www.interac.ca/

The Interac Association (branded as simply Interac) is a Canadian nonprofit interbank network that links financial institutions and other enterprises for the purpose of exchanging electronic financial transactions. Interac was founded in 1984 as a cooperative venture between five financial institutions: RBC, CIBC, Scotiabank, TD, and Desjardins. Interac serves as the Canadian debit card system, as the traditional debit card providers (Visa and MasterCard) rarely provide debit cards in Canada. A 2010 request by Interac to become a for-profit organization was rejected by the federal Competition Bureau.^[1]

By 2010, there were over 80 member organizations and there were over 59,000 Automated Banking Machines that can be accessed through the Interac network in Canada and over 450,000 merchant locations accepting it. Interac's head office is located at Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto.

Services

Interac Association is the organization responsible for the development of a national network of two shared electronic financial services:

Interac Direct Payment (IDP)

• Interac Direct Payment (IDP) is Canada's national debit card service for purchasing of goods and services. Customers enter their personal identification number (PIN) and the amount paid is deducted from either their chequing or savings accounts.
• As of 2001 the number of transactions completed via Interac Direct Payment has surpassed those completed using physical money.^[2]
• Beginning in 2004, IDP purchases could also be made in the United States at merchants on the NYCE network.
• IDP is similar in nature to the EFTPOS systems in use in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

IDP purchases can be made at all retailers participating in the program, regardless of the financial institution issuing the debit card being used, and normally IDP will not charge any fees to the purchaser for using the program.^[3] Banks may levy a charge for withdrawing funds from the account used to fund the purchase,^[3] but these fees are not associated with IDP itself. IDP will instead charge flat fee to the retailers.^[3][4] There are just under 550,000 IDP terminals in use throughout Canada; through these terminals 3.5 billion Point of Service POS transactions were completed totaling 156 billion Canadian dollars in transactions in 2007.^[4] On December 23, 2005, a new record for single day transactions was set with 15.5 million transactions processed.^[5]

Four steps to completing a transaction

The “Interac Inter-Member Network” is a complex network known as a “distributed architecture” throughout the country. Chances of the entire network shutting down are very remote as the network does not have any single “point of failure.” If a single member is experiencing short-term technical difficulties, it is not possible for the entire network to fail.

1. The procedure begins at the time a purchaser makes a purchase with his or her banking or debit card; this is processed with the Interac Direct Payment service. The employee will then record the sale and enter the actual price into the “point of sale terminal”.
2. Either the purchaser or the seller will swipe the card through the reader, or insert the EMV chip card into the chip reader (usually integrated into the pin pad). At this point, the purchaser will enter his or her “Personal Identification Number (PIN)” into the reader. The amount of the transaction is verified, and the account to be debited is selected by the consumer.
3. The sale is transferred throughout the Interac system where the purchaser’s financial services firm verifies the debit card, the PIN, and the funds available in the account. The purchase is complete after these three steps are verified by the purchaser’s institution.
4. A receipt of the transaction is returned to the purchaser along with the banking or debit card.

Benefits

Convenience

Using the Interac system reduces the need to visit an ATM or carry large amounts of cash. The processing fees for merchants are much lower than credit card discounts for the merchants making Interac the preferred payment option for 52% of Canadian merchants.^[6]

Risk reduction

A private Personal Identification Number (PIN) is selected by each card holder to access their individual accounts. This "Two Factor Authentication" (Card/PIN combination) increases the security and confidentiality of the system, helps eliminate the worry of theft, and makes it impossible to access funds in an account without the corresponding PIN.

Consumer protection in Canada

Consumers in Canada are protected under a voluntary industry code which is overseen by the Canadian federal government. The Canadian Code of Practice for Consumer Debit Card Services^[7] (sometimes called the "Debit Card Code") covers all providers of debit card services. Adherence to the Code is overseen by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), which investigates consumer complaints.

According to the FCAC, revisions to the Code that came into effect in 2005^[8] put the onus on the financial institution to prove that a consumer was responsible for a disputed transaction, and also place a limit on the number of days that an account can be frozen during the financial institution's investigation of a transaction.

Privacy & security

Compared to other forms of payment, only a limited amount of information is revealed with each transaction. The only personal information found on a typical receipt will be the client's card number, usually consisting of only the last four digits of the card, and the account selected (chequing/savings). In comparison, when a cheque is made out to a merchant, the customer's name, address, and phone number are in the top left hand corner of a cheque and the MICR encoded account number is printed on the bottom of the cheque. In addition, because cheques are easily forged, merchants will often ask for identification documents, typically containing a photo, to confirm the cheque issuer matches the information on the cheque.

IDP flaws and features

Interac Direct Payment is a PIN-based system where the information entered on the PIN pad is encrypted and verified at a central server, rather than being stored on the card itself. Because of this, it is significantly more secure than traditional signature or card-based transactions. Despite these security features, there are ongoing fraud concerns, particularly when debit cards are duped or skimmed — a compromised automated teller machine or point-of-sale terminal will record the account information contained in the magnetic strip of the card, allowing for duplicate cards to be created at a later time. The owner of the card is then secretly video taped or observed entering their PIN, allowing a criminal to use duplicate cards to make fraudulent purchases.

The move to Interac Chip Cards

In an effort to combat fraud and increase security, Interac announced it will be moving to EMV Chip Card technology, which began with a market trial in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Fall, 2007.^[9][10] The main benefit to this technology over the existing magnetic stripes is that the chips are almost impossible to copy due to high levels of encryption. This is seen as being able to reduce the amount of debit card fraud caused by card skimming and duplication. However new Interac Chip Cards will continue to feature a magnetic stripe in the interim in order for them to be used at ATMs or retailers which have not yet been upgraded, as well as in countries which have not yet adopted chip cards, such as the United States.

The purchase experience for consumers will remain largely unchanged, except instead of swiping the card, it will be inserted into a chip reader on the PIN Pad and will remain inserted for the duration of the transaction. PINs will still be used as the means to authenticate transactions.

Interac expects the transition to chip cards to take several years to complete, but will be completed before certain milestone dates:

• After 31 December 2012, all ATM transactions must be completed with a chip card
• After 30 September 2016, all POS transactions must be completed with a chip card,^[11] however a liability shift takes place on 31 December 2015.^[12]

Shared Cash Dispensing (SCD)

• Shared Cash Dispensing (SCD): cash withdrawals from any ABM not belonging to a cardholder's financial institution.
• This Canada-specific service is similar to international systems like PLUS or Cirrus.
• Virtually every ABM in Canada is on the Interac system.

Interac email money transfer

The Interac email money transfer service is offered by CertaPay. It allows online banking customers to send money to anyone with an e-mail address and a bank account in Canada. This is an Interac branded service operated by Acxsys Corporation.

Interac Online

The Interac Online service allows customers to pay for goods and services over the Internet using funds directly from their bank accounts. Because no financial information is shared with the online merchant, the Interac Online service is more secure than online credit card payments. This service, an Interac branded service operated by Acxsys Corporation, began in 2005 and is expanding as more merchants choose to participate. Since November 2007, the service has been available to customers of four of the five largest Canadian banks: RBC, BMO, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust (CIBC uses Visa Debit for online payments from bank accounts). As of February 2009, the service is offered by roughly 300 merchants including two large universities (for tuition payments), two major wireless carriers, provincial lottery corporations, and a wide variety of retailers. Interac Online is an Online Banking ePayments service very similar to iDEAL in the Netherlands, Giropay^[13] in Germany, and Secure Vault Payments^[14] in the United States.

See also

• ATM usage fees
• White-label ABMs in Canada
• Debit card

References

1. The Canadian Press (2010-02-12). "Bureau axes Interac request to become for-profit". CTV News.ca. Bell Media. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
2. Buchholz, Garth A. (Jul 22, 2005). "INTERAC Milestones in Canada | Electronic Cash Payments: Canada Loves its Debit Cards, but Will the Cashless Revolution Happen in the U.S.?". InformIT. Pearson Education. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
3. "Fees". Interac.ca. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
4. "Canadian Business Group Warns of Higher POS Debit Pricing". Digital Transactions. Boland Hill Media, LLC. Sep 4, 2008. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
5. Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
6. "Cash still king at the checkout counter". CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc. Aug 19, 2008. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
7. "For the industry". Fcac-acfc.gc.ca. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
8. "For the industry". Fcac-acfc.gc.ca. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
9. "What is Chip Technology | Interac". Interac.ca. 2012-12-31. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
10. "Interac Association Chip Guide". EPOSS. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
11. "Interac Chip FAQ". Interac.ca. 2012-09-07. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
12. Interac - For Merchants
13. "Home: giropay" (in German). Giropay.de. 2013-09-18. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
14. "Fast. Easy. Secure". Secure Vault Payments. Retrieved 2013-10-18.

Bibliography

• Interac Association (2006). At the Merchant 2006. Retrieved 19 June 2006, from http://www.interac.ca/en_n2_11_howitworks.html
• Interac Association (2006). At the Merchant 2006. Retrieved 19 June 2006, from http://www.interac.ca/en_n2_12_benefits.html
• Interac Association (2006). At the Merchant 2006. Retrieved 19 June 2006, from http://www.interac.ca/en_n2_13_fees.html

External links

• Interac website
• Interac Chip Card website
• Interac Online website