this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
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[–] Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe I misunderstand, but can you explain what you mean about the banking system? Is it more for international transactions?

Canada has a banking system and our own payment system for consumer transactions called Interac. Canadian debit cards work differently than US ones, (or at least they used to). I worked at a tourist spot one summer and remember the US customers getting annoyed their cards didn't work here. The transactions on the Canadian cards were real-time so overdraft wasn't as much of a concern if you were using your card in a store. It would just get declined. Pre-authorized transactions and cheques are different, of course.

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

can you explain what you mean about the banking system? Is it more for international transactions?

It works on multiple levels:

  1. Your citizens having accounts in US banks.
  2. Your banks being dependent on US software.
  3. Your banks relying on a US backend for domestic (person to person or customer to business or business to business) transactions.
  4. Same as 3, but for international transactions.
  5. Your citizens, businesses and banks using the US dollar for international transactions.

Each of these is a little tax or subsidy you pay to the US. They also expose you to US sanctions. So the more of these you can do locally, the better. In practice, you want to completely avoid 2 and 3, and minimise 1, 4 and 5.

our own payment system for consumer transactions called Interac

Good. You need to make sure everyone uses it. Make it easy to set up, remove any usage fees (at least temporarily), and make it the default option offered by banks. You can also add features like payment apps and integration with public transport / ride-sharing services.

[–] Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for the response but I wonder if maybe there is a misunderstanding.

Canadians generally don't have American bank accounts. Businesses who do business in the states have them and I'm sure some individuals do but it's often about how hard it is to do financial transactions in the US with via a Canadian bank. I was involved in an org that made one large payment to the US each year and they set up an account to do it because it wasn't worth the hassle otherwise. The US has way more restrictions than one might expect lol.

When I was asking about international transactions I meant more like country to country or something, not individual consumers or businesses.

Good. You need to make sure everyone uses it.

This also makes me wonder if we are talking about different things. Interac isn't optional. It's the only way to use your bank account to pay for things via a card. It is run by the banks and has been around since the 80s.

As far as I understand the Canadian banking infrastructure is independent of the US or any other country. A lot of the software is custom or even developed in house. (I know a few people who worked or work for banks as developers.)

You can also add features like payment apps and integration with public transport / ride-sharing services.

Yeah, this all exists and has for a very long time. Canada was ahead of the states in terms of some of that stuff because we have way fewer banks and tighter regulations so it was easier. I remember visiting family in the 2000s and being shocked people wrote cheques. I don't think I had seen someone pay with a cheque in a store before. 1

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

Ah then you're in a better place than I thought. You've already solved issues 2 and 3. Some Canadian people / businesses have US bank accounts (#1) for ease of doing business, but that's fine. Now your main concern would be international transactions (#4) and dollar dependency (#5). China and the EU have international payments systems that you might be able to use. You can also use Euro / Yuan for those transactions, and gradually replace / supplement the dollar with these currencies for your foreign reserve.