2024 North American PaymentsInsights: Canada: Generational Consumer Payment Trends

This year, we identified consistent patterns of payment behavior that align with the findings from last year's study of Canadian consumers. Younger generations predominantly drove the adoption of digital and mobile payment technologies, whereas older generations continued to prefer traditional payment methods and were less keen on experimenting with newer technology. 

Most consumers report having used a credit card in the past year and this increases with age while debit cards were the second most used payment method and tended to decrease with age. Credit cards also were the most preferred payment method for in-store and online shopping with older generations showing the strongest preference. Among non-card payment methods, we observed a continued popularity of cash as well as higher usage for digital wallets, mobile payments, and BNPL among younger generations. 

Among P2P technology, the Interac e-transfer system continues to be the most popular even edging out industry titans such as PayPal. Around 40% of Canadian consumers have used the fast money transfer service of their P2P app with Gen X being the highest user of this service. 

The latest technologies such as Pay by Bank are also making their way to Canadian consumers. Usage was highest among younger generations for bill payments and subscription services although overall usage was low. Potential adopters of the technology saw the most likely use case to be online-only retailers such as Amazon and for grocery stores and supermarkets with cashback rewards being the most likely driver for adoption.

Highlights of the research report include: 

• Payment Methods & Usage 
• Debit Cards 
• Credit 
• P2P Payments 
• Digital Wallets 
• Real-Time Payments