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Interac e-Transfer®

Just like sending cash, only better.

With one simple transaction, you can send money directly to practically anyone in Canada. There’s no need for cheques or visits to an ATM. Plus, it’s secure – there’s no sharing of bank information, all you need is an email address.†

Sending, requesting and receiving money with Interac e-Transfer® is quick, convenient & easy, from start to finish.

Interac e-Transfer® how-to guides

Frequently Asked Questions

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Frequently Asked Questions

Personal Clients

 SendingReceiving
Per Transaction$3,000$25,000
24 Hour Limit$3,000N/A
7 Day$10,000N/A
30 Day$20,000N/A

 

Business Clients

 SendingReceiving
Per Transaction$10,000$25,000
24 Hour Limit$10,000N/A
7 Day$70,000N/A
30 Day$300,000N/A
    • $10,000.00 maximum transaction limit.
    • $70,000.00 7-day rolling limit.
    • $300,000.00 30-day rolling limit

These ‘rolling’ limits apply from the date of a transaction, and expire 7 or 30 days after that initial transaction takes place. For example, if an e-Transfer is completed on January 10th at 12:00, then the 7 day limit will be in effect until January 17th at 12:00 and then reset. At the same time, the 30 day limit will be in effect until February 9th at 12:00 at which time it resets.

    • $3,000.00 per transaction.
    • $10,000.00 per week.
    • $20,000.00 per 30 days.

These ‘rolling’ limits apply from the date of a transaction, and expire 7 or 30 days after that initial transaction takes place. For example, if an e-Transfer is completed on January 10th at 12:00, then the 7 day limit will be in effect until January 17th at 12:00 and then reset. At the same time, the 30 day limit will be in effect until February 9th at 12:00 at which time it resets.

Limits were based on our members’ average history for this type of transaction, and $3000.00 will be sufficient for the majority of our members. Industry standard transaction limit is $1,000 to $1,500 per transaction. 

Effective June 1, 2018 Interac e-Transfers® are classified as a day-to-day transaction and if applicable a day-to-day transaction fee will be applied when you send or request an Interac e-Transfer®  depending on your banking package or the savings account that you send the Interac e-Transfer® from. Please refer to our Personal Service Fee Listing for further information.

Interac e-Transfers® can be done anytime, day or night, weekends or holidays. Recipients are notified by email usually within 30 minutes after an e-Transfer is sent, and funds are immediately available to be deposited into their account. Funds are withdrawn from the sender’s account on submission of the e-Transfer. Any applicable service fee(s) will be withdrawn from the sender’s account at the end of the business day they initiated the transfer(s), and is non-refundable. Refer to our service fees for details.

Anyone with an email address, access to online banking and a Canadian bank account can send money with Interac e-Transfer®. If you don’t have these, your options to send money are by wire or cheque. You may send money to someone’s mobile phone if you don’t know their email address or if they don’t have one. Funds may be received by recipients that don’t use or have access to online banking, as long as their Canadian financial institution provides the Interac e-Transfer® service (processing will take longer – visit interac.ca for more information).

You can send an Interac e-Transfer® Request Money to anyone who has a valid phone number or email address and has access to online banking or a mobile banking app. However if the individuals Financial Institution does not support the Request Money feature they will have to decline the request with a message to the requestor.

Yes. The Interac® e-Transfer® service allows you to set up multiple receivers, and keeps the information on file. When sending or requesting an e-Transfer, simply select your recipient from the drop-down list. Recipients can be edited or updated at any time.

If you’re already logged into Alterna Bank when you open the notification email and click on the link to receive funds, the Interac® page that appears will not take you to the Alterna Bank login. To receive funds to an Alterna Bank account, you will need first to log out of Alterna Savings, then login to Alterna Bank. You can then proceed with receiving the funds.

Online banking keeps a record of e-Transfer history, as well as pending transfers. You can look up past transactions by logging into online banking, selecting the Interac e-Transfer® option, then choosing View History above the e-Transfer entry box. Simply select the period of time you wish to view history for, up to a maximum of 24 months.

If the transaction has not yet been received by the recipient, you can choose to cancel the transaction from the Pending e-Transfers screen. If the transaction has already been completed and funds deposited to the receiver, then contact us.

If you suspect you’ve been defrauded, contact us

e-Transfers can be cancelled only if the recipient has not yet accepted or sent the funds.  Once a transaction is completed, it can’t be reversed. If it is a fraudulent transaction, please contact us

Interac e-Transfers® expire 30 days after they’re sent or requested. After 30 days, the recipient will not be able to receive and deposit the funds. Senders and requestors can send reminder notices to recipients from the ‘Pending e-Transfers’ screen in online banking. If a recipient fails to receive and deposit funds within the 30-days, the sender will be notified by email to deposit the funds back into their account, with the exceptiion of the non-refundable Service fee(s). 

The Cancel and Resend links will appear once the e-Transfer has been received and processed by Interac, and the notification email has been sent, which may take up to 30 minutes*. Until then, you’ll be able to only view the e-Transfer in a ‘Requested’ state.

Once the sent transfer has been processed by Interac, you have the option of cancelling the transfer or resending the notification email. If your recipient has not received their notification 2 hours or more after you submitted the transfer, resend the notification.

When the entire process has been completed, and funds received/deposited by the recipient, the e-Transfer will show a ‘Completed’ status. Once completed, transactions cannot be cancelled by the sender.

To edit a request for money, log back into online banking or the mobile app and go to your payment history and select the Interac e-Transfer® transaction you wish to edit. Use the edit option provided to make the change. Please note that you cannot edit a request for money once it has been fulfilled.

You can decline a request by selecting the decline option when you are notified of a request for money on the fulfilment page. You can also provide a message that is sent back to the individual requesting the funds to explain why you are declining their request.

Yes, you can opt-out of receiving requests from a specific requestor, or from the feature completely by selecting opt out on the fulfilment page.

When fulfilling a request for money, you don’t need to enter a security question because it’s a shared secret between you and the sender of the request. With Request Money once you fulfil the requests the funds are automatically deposited into the account rather then manually having to select deposit.

Yes! Even if the person you’re sending money to doesn’t use a participating financial institution, you can send money through Interac e-transfer® following the same steps you normally would. When the recipient goes to receive the funds and clicks on the link in the notification email, they will see Other Options at the bottom of the Deposit Your Transfer page. They’ll then be able to use the option to “Deposit without using online banking” if they wish to continue once they’ve read the details (NOTE: The service fees, limits, processing time and other requirements when using the “Deposit without using online banking” feature are levied and controlled by Interac® and not Alterna). Should you have any questions or concerns about the information on this page, please visit interac.ca.

Unless you share a joint account with the member, you will need to use Interac e-Transfer® services to send money to another member of Alterna Bank.

* Depending on the volume of e-Transfers being processed by Interac, this process may take as long as 2 hours, but on average you can expect processing within 30 minutes.

Ready to make an Interac e-Transfer®?

† Requester or recipient must be a resident of Canada and have an account at a participating Canadian financial institution with access to online banking. Effective April 29, 2019 Interac e-Transfers® are classified as a day-to-day transaction and if applicable a day-to-day transaction fee will be applied when you send or request an Interac e-Transfer® depending on your banking package or the savings account that you send the Interac e-Transfer® from. Please refer to our Personal Service Fee Listing for further information. The email carries the notice, while the financial institutions transfer the money securely.

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