Canadian banks have a cosy non compete arrangement, and they are allowed to charge enormous Interac and CC transaction fees. Tangerine (Scotiabank's online only

Canadian banks have a cosy non compete arrangement, and they are allowed to charge enormous Interac and CC transaction fees. Tangerine (Scotiabank's online only brand) and Simplii (CIBC) offer no fee accounts and unlimited free Interac. Canadians are very traditional and change resistant too, they like to go into the physical bank. I think cheques still exist because there is no system in Interac for associating a destination account reference with an Interac transfer. In Australia cheques have been replaced by BPay (owned by the banks) and PostBillPay (owned by the Post Office) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPAY https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPAY. In fact, I've never had to use a cheque as an adult except for e.g. buying a car/house. Interbank transfers and instant payments (Osko) have been free for ages, at least 20 years. https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/mar/two-years-of-fast-payments-in-australia.html https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/mar/two-ye... It shows how arthritic banking is in the West that payment systems like AliPay haven't been allowed.