Someone tells you they sent an Interac e-Transfer. An hour later your account balance hasn't moved, there is no email, and they are sending you a screenshot that says 'Sent'. Or you are the sender, and the transfer has sat on 'Pending' for two days, or it has come back as expired, declined or 'deposit failed'.
An e-Transfer is not a direct payment from one account to another. Interac's terms describe the sender's bank holding the money until the transfer is deposited, cancelled or expires. The email or text is only a notice telling the recipient where to collect it. Almost every 'not received' problem is a notice that went to the wrong place, a deposit nobody has completed yet, or a check one of the two banks is running. Interac itself can't look up transactions, so every fix below happens in your own online banking or with your bank.
Read the status first: it tells you which fix you need
Ask the sender to open the transfer in their banking app and read you the status. At Scotiabank it is under 'Move money', 'Interac e-Transfer', then 'Transfer History'. At RBC it is 'Payment History' in Online Banking, and at CIBC it is 'Interac e-Transfer', then 'Status'. Every transfer also has a reference number, which your bank will ask for if you call.
- 'Pending' or 'Sent': the money left the sender's account but nobody has deposited it yet. Scotiabank's help centre describes pending as a transfer the recipient hasn't accepted. See causes one to three.
- Completed or deposited: the money landed in the account linked to the email or phone number used. If that isn't your account, see cause one.
- Expired, declined, cancelled or 'deposit failed': the transfer is not coming and the money is on its way back to the sender. See cause five.
- No transfer at all in their history: it was never sent. Interac says a genuine notification email shows the sender's full legal name and the address notify@payments.interac.ca, and texts come from the short codes 100001 or 100002. A screenshot or a message from any other address proves nothing, so check your own online banking and forward anything suspicious to phishing@interac.ca.
Cause 1: Wrong email or phone number, or the notice went to spam
A single wrong letter in an email address is the most common reason a transfer never shows up. The notice goes to an inbox that doesn't exist or belongs to someone else. CIBC lists 'The email address or mobile phone number you entered for your contact is invalid' among its reasons a transfer comes back, and its terms say the sender gets a notice if the address or number does not accept the message.
If the address is right, the notice may simply be sitting in the wrong folder. RBC's own advice when a transfer hasn't arrived is to check your spam folders or contact the sender to make sure they have the correct email address.
- Recipient: search your inbox, spam and junk folders for 'Interac' and for the sender's full legal name. Check every email address you own.
- If the link in the notice won't open, Interac says to cut and paste or type the link into your browser.
- Sender at RBC: open the transfer and choose to resend the notice. RBC notes this does not send a second e-Transfer, it only resends the notice. In the RBC Mobile app, 'Edit & Resend' in the History tab lets you correct the email or phone number.
- Sender at CIBC: its terms say readdressing a transfer restarts the 30 days the recipient has to claim it.
- If the status says completed and the recipient never got it, the wrong person may have deposited it. Call your bank straight away. TD's terms say a transfer that isn't auto-deposited is paid to anyone who claims it and answers the security question correctly, whether or not they were the person you meant.
Cause 2: Autodeposit isn't set up, or isn't set up for that address
With Autodeposit, the money goes straight into your account with no security question. Scotiabank says recipients registered for it get access within minutes. Without it, nothing lands in your account until you click the link in the notice, sign in to your bank and accept it. Plenty of people assume a transfer will just appear, and it sits on 'Pending' until it expires.
Autodeposit only works for the exact email address or mobile number you registered. If the sender used your other email, you will get an ordinary notice instead. Interac also says that once an email is registered for Autodeposit, it can't be used again with another account, which catches people who moved banks and never removed the address from the old one.
- To register, sign in to your online banking, find 'Autodeposit' in the Interac e-Transfer settings, enter your email address or mobile number and choose the account. Interac then sends an email or text, and you must select 'Complete Registration'. Until you do, it isn't active.
- At BMO, it is under 'More', then 'Interac e-Transfer', then 'Manage Autodeposit' in the mobile app, or the 'Pay & Transfer' tab in Online Banking.
- If the address is still registered at a bank you have left, remove it in that bank's Autodeposit settings first, then register it at the new one.
- Tell people paying you the exact address you registered. Interac says senders see the recipient's full legal name before they press send when Autodeposit is on, so ask them to check it.
Cause 3: The security question answer doesn't match
Without Autodeposit, the recipient has to answer the question the sender set. Interac says answers are not case sensitive and can't contain special characters such as '@' or '&'. TD adds that answers can be 3 to 23 letters and/or numbers. A sender who typed 'Smith-Jones' as the answer and expects 'smithjones' back is a common source of trouble.
Scotiabank and CIBC both list an incorrect answer as a reason a transfer fails and returns to the sender. If that happens, the fix is a new transfer with a simpler answer. Interac says the answer should never be sent by email or text, so give it by phone or in person.
Cause 4: A bank limit or a fraud check is holding it
Interac says transfers are nearly instant but can take up to 30 minutes depending on the bank, and that deposit times may vary because of routine fraud checks between the sending and receiving banks. Interac's terms also allow a transaction to be declined if any party is suspected of wrongful activity, and say timing depends partly on your bank's own internal rules.
Limits are set by each bank, not by Interac. Interac says typical consumer limits are $2,000 to $3,000 per transaction, and TD says it has daily, weekly and monthly maximums for both sending and receiving. Interac's terms say a transaction can be declined if it exceeds a limit or if the information supplied is incorrect.
- Check your limits in your online banking, or ask your bank. Your bank's number is usually on the back of your debit card.
- If a large amount is blocked, split it into transfers within the limit or ask your bank whether it can raise it.
- If the transfer has been held for more than a few hours, the sender should call their bank with the reference number. Only the banks can see or release a fraud hold.
Cause 5: It expired, was declined, cancelled or failed to deposit
Interac says a transfer not picked up within 30 days expires, and the sender gets a notice explaining how to reclaim the money. A decline by the recipient is irreversible. Scotiabank adds that an Autodeposit transfer can fail if the recipient's account is closed or invalid, and its business banking help uses 'Recipient deposit failed' for a transfer that could not be deposited to the recipient's account. In every case the recipient can no longer collect it, and the sender has to send a new one.
Getting the money back works differently at each bank:
- RBC: a transfer expires after 30 calendar days. You then have 15 calendar days to reclaim it from 'Payment History' by selecting 'Cancel Payment'. After that, RBC charges a $5 fee to deposit it back into your account.
- CIBC: reclaimed funds are deposited back automatically, but CIBC says returning them may take up to 30 days.
- Scotiabank: you get an email with instructions to deposit the money back into your account.
- To cancel a transfer that hasn't been accepted, use 'Cancel Payment' at RBC, or 'Stop this Interac e-Transfer' under 'Status' at CIBC, where a fee applies. RBC, TD and Scotiabank all say a transfer sent to an Autodeposit account can't be cancelled.
Prevent it next time
Most failed transfers come down to one wrong detail at the start, so a little checking up front saves days of chasing.
- If you get paid by e-Transfer regularly, register for Autodeposit and give people that exact address or number.
- Senders: copy and paste the recipient's email instead of typing it, and check the legal name shown before you press send.
- Keep security question answers short, without spaces or symbols, and share them by phone.
- If you invoice by Interac Request Money, Interac says the payer gets a notice and automatic reminders, and you can cancel the request only while it is pending. If your requests never arrive, the payer may have opted out of requests from you, which Interac allows from the fulfilment page.
- Write down the reference number of any transfer that matters. Your bank will ask for it first.
If you sell things and are tired of chasing transfers
If you sell to customers and spend too much time matching e-Transfers to orders, a free OneSol page can list your products, and on Pro ($9/month) customers can pay by card through your own Stripe, PayPal or Square account, with the money going straight to you. It doesn't take Interac, so treat it as a card option alongside e-Transfer, not a replacement.