Email transfer vs interac transfer | Tangerine Bank | Discussion forum

file said
Tangerine EMT is not instant unless the other person is a Tangerine customer and is more work for the receiver.

Interac e-Transfer is instantish.

As to why... you'd have to ask Tangerine.  

Amen to that, file!

At one time, the wholesale cost of the Interac e-Transfers (which used to be called Interac E-mail Money Transfers, interestingly!) was much, much higher that it was likely much more prohibitive for Tangerine to offer them for free (indeed, only the "Big 5" banks occasionally offered them for free, with their premium chequing accounts that come with premium monthly fees!). However, with EQ Bank, Alterna Bank, Motive Financial, Simplii Financial, First West Credit Union, North Peace Savings & Credit Union, Manulife Bank, the "Big 6" banks, Desjardins, Innovation Credit Union, HSBC Bank Canada, and Motus Bank all offering them for free, there's no reason why Tangerine shouldn't follow their lead. Maybe they're still quite impressed with themselves for developing an alternate, free e-mail money transfer system using the EFT system, and they absolutely could retain that as a parallel system in addition to free Interac e-Transfers, at least for 2-5 years until its usage falls off precipitously. Then, they could retain the intellectual property (source code, etc.) but otherwise demise it from their banking platform.

Interac e-Transfers, when free, are a wonderful alternative to banks like EQ Bank and Motus Bank that have (a) no hold release limits to make available a portion of pulled EFT deposits instantaneously and, in the case of the latter, (b) slow EFT transaction posting times that take fully 3-5 business days in addition to the normal 1-2 posting day time frames. They can also be used for pushing funds as you're right, it's instant-ish. I've found it takes a couple hours to first receive the e-mail notification, but once received, the deposit is instantaneous.

Cheers,
Doug