Interac Launches Flash Mobile Debit Service in Canada
With more consumers migrating to smartphones, telecoms, banks, and payment networks are scrambling to capture a slice of Canada’s emerging mobile payments market. The most recent entree is national debit card services provider Interac Association, which just completed Canada’s initial mobile-based debit transaction in collaboration with Royal Bank of Canada and Moneris Solutions. The coming year will see a wider deployment of Interac’s Flash mobile debit service, and Interac reports that in 2012 Canadians opted for debit 56 percent of the time when not paying with cash. Interac’s Flash app differs from credit card-based mobile payment services in that it is designed to work with all wireless carriers, enabling consumers to use the debit app on any NFC-enabled smartphone, provided their bank offers Flash’s mobile service. Contactless debit card transactions can be made at McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, Petro-Canada, and liquor and beer establishments in Ontario. “Canadians tend to pull out their debit cards and they do it more frequently than … all the payment types combined,” notes Interac’s Avinash Chidambaram. “Now they are starting to make purchase decisions using their smartphones when they are in a store, and the natural evolution of that is they want to be able to use that smartphone to actually make that purchase.”
From “The Next Gold Rush? Mobile Payments”
Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada) (03/28/13) Trichur, Rita