[Canada] How to Send Cash Via Email

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Canadians: How to Send Cash Via Email

It's hard to imagine life without debit cards. If you're like most Canadians, you probably use your debit card to pay for groceries, gas and much more. In addition, the debit card lets you to withdraw cash from over 47,000 automated banking machines anytime day or night.

In addition to using your cards for withdrawing cash and paying for goods and services, did you know that you could also use your debit card to quickly and cheaply transfer money to friends and relatives across the country? Digital Home looks at how you can send money using Interac Email money transfer.

Introduction

If you want to email cash to friends or relatives in Canada and you're set up for online banking with one of the following big five banks: Bank of Montreal, CIBC, RBC Royal Bank, Scotiabank, or TD Canada Trust, then perhaps the simplest and easiest way to send someone cash is through an email transfer using Certapay.

CertaPay is a division of Acxsys Corporation who in conjunction with the big banks created the Interac organization. The Interac organization began in 1984 when the big banks decided to link their own automated banking machine networks together in order to give their cardholders broader access to cash withdrawals at any automated banking machine (ABM) across Canada. This first Interac cash withdrawal actually took place in 1986.

In 1990, when consumers were able to pay vendors for purchases using their debit card, usage began to skyrocket and by 1997 Interac had logged over one billion transactions. By the year 2000 Interac payments had surpassed cash as Canadians preferred way to pay for purchases.

In 2002, Certapay was created to facilitate email money transfers. Surprisingly, despite having been available now for three years, many Canadians are unaware of their ability to send email money transfers.

The Email Money Transfer Process

Perhaps the trickiest part of an email money transfer is the security question. In order to prevent senders accidentally sending money to the wrong individual, Certapay requires that the sender create a security question. In order to claim the money the recipient must correctly answer the security question. If the recipient does not correctly answer the security question in three tries, then the money must be resent.

Digital Home Canada recommends that you confirm the answer to the security question verbally with the recipient prior to emailing the money or be sure to ask a question that only the recipient would know. Do not reveal the answer to the security question in the personal message to the recipient.

The following is brief overview of the Certapay email money transfer process where the sender and receiver have an online banking relationship with one of the big five banks.

Sender

To send money, the sender performs the following four steps

1. Log into your online banking service and select “ Email Money Transfers”
   
2. Enter the recipient’s name and email address or select a recipient from drop-down list of past recipients.
   
3. Insert a payment amount, account from which to draw the funds, a personal message to recipient and a security question to validate that the person receiving the money is the intended receiver.
   
4. Confirm transfer details
   

Once the sender has confirmed the details, the sending bank withdraws funds from the customer's account, updates the customer’s balance and transfers the funds to the recipient’s bank. All transfers are done using secure servers located in a secure, physically protected facility and supported by 128-bit encryption.

Receiver

To receive money, the recipient performs the following four steps

1. Receives email notification in email Inbox; hyperlink included in the email directs recipient to bank of choice.
   
2. Recipient logs in to online banking.
   
3. Answers sender’s security question and indicates account into which to deposit the funds;
   
4. Confirms receipt
   

Once the recipient correctly answers the security question, the funds are transferred into recipient’s selected account and the recipient’s balance updated. If a transfer is not deposited within 30 days, the sender is notified by email and the funds are returned for re-crediting.

Restrictions for Using Interac Email Transfer

To send money using Interac email transfer, you must have an online banking account with one of the following financial institutions: CIBC, Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, TD Canada Trust, and Royal Bank of Canada.

Transfers can only be completed from Canadian dollar accounts and most institutions have minimums and maximums governing how much can be sent. For example, BMO - the Bank of Montreal has a minimum transfer amount of $10 and a maximum transfer amount of $1,000 per day.

Cost

For the sender there is a $1.50 plus any fees normally associated with Interac transfers. If the receiver has an online banking account with one of the five major banks then there is no charge to receive an email money transfer.

If the recipient's account is with another financial institution, the recipient can still receive and deposit the Email Money Transfer; however, this method usually takes between 3-5 business days and is subject to additional fees levied by the receiving financial institution.

Should you wish to stop payment on an email Money Transfer, the cost is generally $3.50. If the recipient was unable to receive the money because they did not answer the security question correctly you may reclaim the transfer at no charge.

PayPal - An alternative to Certapay

In Canada, Interac is probably the most inexpensive and convenient way to send cash since the vast majority of Canadians already bank with the big five banks.

If you don't bank with the big five or simply don't wish to use them for emailing money, several other alternatives exist that you may wish to consider and the biggest is Paypal.

PayPal , which was founded in 1998, is an eBay Company located in San Jose, California and is the global leader in online payment solutions with 71 million account members worldwide.

The primary benefit of Paypal is that for private individuals, there is no cost to set up a PayPal account and no cost to send or receive money. The downside of PayPal is that both sender and receiver must have PayPal accounts and depending on the financial institution you deal with, getting money in and out of PayPal account can be time consuming.

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