The Interac debit system is Canadian. I would like to see it expanded to include a credit division that does credit cards like Visa/MasterCard, but since we are a much smaller market than the US, we wouldn't have nearly as big of a cushion if there were to be any sort of major fraud activity. But for me, local purchases are always debit. I only use my CC for purchases where my debit card isn't accepted (which is basically only online shopping).
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Agreed. I would like to see an option to use NFC for payments that isn't tied to Google/Apple pay. Anything that eliminates an obstacle to breaking out of that duopoly ecosystem is hugely beneficial.
Yes! So annoying
Problem with debit is that most banks limit/charge for transactions.
I keep my bank transactions to a bare minimum. They charge me to hold my money so they can invest it and make themselves interest, and they charge me to remove my money. Only rich people get those fees waived. And I am way less likely to go below my balance an incur other surprise fees. Credit card is the only way. Or cash, but that requires making large withdrawals once or twice a month and carrying it around.
Must be noted that credit card purchases not actually free, just the cost is borne by the merchant and returned in an averaged-out, invisible way.
GNU Taler is based in Europe, I believe. But seeing as it's free software there's no reason not to use it in Canada.
That's awesome, but I'd wait a bit, since trust is the #1 real currency of banks. Once we know it's fully trustworthy, we're good.
or maybe start accepting Euros to pay taxes
Why would Canada ever accept taxes in anything but Canadian Dollars? You get paid in CAD, and taxes are automatically deducted for most jobs. Exchanging to a different country's currency first makes no sense and would give control to EU institutions for no reason?
Canada has the resources to set up their own system. They could easily expand Interac, which covers a lot of types of transactions already, at least in-person. Online shopping is going to be an uphill battle getting all the merchants to accept more than just Visa/MasterCard, but maybe with Shopify being Canadian they could make it easy.
Shopify supports MAGA.
And? They operate the majority of online businesses across Canada, so good luck getting all the business to support some new payment method without integrating it into the systems they're already using. This is a practical statement, not a political one.
They should try the Brazilian PIX.
I looked into that the first time I heard about PIX, but from my understanding after reading up on it, PIX is very similar to the existing Canadian Interac/eTransfer system. Both only work in their respective countries and give the easy ability to share money with businesses or each other. But they are based on instant transfer from one bank account to another, and aren't credit-based like Visa/Mastercard.
only in their respective countries
Not true. My mother (Brazilian) was in Argentina last month and was able to use PIX. But there needs to be a contract between countries for that to work.
aren’t credit-based
You’re right. It’s an instantaneous transfer from bank account to bank account. And that’s awesome that it’s not credit based, as people tend to spend much more than they should when using credit cards.
I've been saying this for a decade now.
Even more since the censorship on steam happened.
This can be really useful as long as alternatives are not made unavailable. Any digital payment processor/system can have some avenue for tracking, which can lead to sale and/or breach and subsequent exploitation of data. If one payment method becomes the only payment method, the privacy implications can be significant no matter if it's a private or public run method.