The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) announced today that it will no longer charge a $1 fee for Interac e-transfers made from a personal chequing account, becoming the first bank in Canada to waive the fee.
“Offering free e-Transfers supports our commitment to helping our clients seamlessly and quickly send money how they want and when they want,” said Linda Mantia, executive vice-president of digital, payments and cards at RBC in a press release.
RBC says it made the decision to drop the fee after it looked at statistics from Interac, which showed steady growth in usage of the company’s e-transfer service.
Mantia said she believed that mobile technology has been the cause of this fast rate of adoption, stating that more than 50 percent of RBC’s e-transfers are currently sent using a mobile device, as opposed to 20 percent just a few years ago.
“RBC’s investment in mobile has really accelerated the adoption of person-to-person payments and in 2015 RBC clients sent more than $22 billion in payments between our two person-to-person payment services – far surpassing many incumbents and new entrants in the fintech space,” said Mantia.
Recently, RBC rolled out a redesigned mobile app and RBC Wallet app for Android and iPhone, both of which support Interac e-transfer payments.
The fees for Interac e-transfers from savings accounts and small business accounts remain at $1 and $1.50, respectively.
The fees for sending e-transfers at the other large Canadian banks are $1 at the Bank of Montreal and Scotiabank, and $1.50 at TD Canada Trust.
Related reading: RBC Wallet app now available on Android, RBC Mobile Android app updated with new design
[source]RBC[/source]
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