Payments Canada Canadian Payments: Methods and Trends Report 2020

In 2019, the total payments market in Canada grew to 22 billion consumer and business transactions worth $9.9 trillion.

Here are some key takeaways...

• Overall, cheque volume decreased by 12 per cent and seven per cent in value from 2018. Of note, consumer cheque usage dropped nearly 30 per cent over the past five years.

• Cheques remain pertinent for commercial transactions, making up more than 40 per cent of commercial transaction value.

• Over the past five years, cash volume has decreased 38 per cent, mostly losing volume to card payments.

• Contactless payments grew 15 per cent in volume and 20 per cent in value from 2018.

• Consumers continue to substitute cash transactions with contactless debit and credit “tap” transactions.

• Mobile and wearable contactless adoption continues to grow as more Canadians embrace mobile wallet use.

• EFT transactions continue to be used for high value transactions, shown by a six per cent increase in value from 2018. This further points to the migration of paper cheques to electronic substitutes for commercial transactions.

• Consumer use of EFT also continues to grow as consumers adopt pre-authorized debits (PADs) for bill payments and recurring payments.

• Online transfers have become the key facilitators for peer-to-peer transactions at the expense of cash and cheques.

• Online transfer service providers continue to innovate with faster and more convenient features to meet consumer and commercial payments needs.

• Credit card transactions grew 16 per cent in volume from 2018, marking the biggest jump in credit card usage over the past five years.

• Canadian use of credit cards has been historically high and the growing e-commerce market continues to contribute to high credit card use.

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