Yes.

Yes, and wall them off from US data collection.

Tbh the EU should do it (much bigger customer base) and Canada should participate in the development and deployment of that system

The EU is under full frontal assault on many of its financial, consumer, commercial and technological protections and systems and is cracking and giving the pressure in many places unfortunately. Partner with the EU where you can, there are also interesting things happening in Brasil IIRC in this space.

Yes, together with Europe. Make it interconnected but independent.

In 2025, American-owned Visa and Mastercard controlled 96 percent of Canada’s credit card market

many consumers pay with Apple-issued iPhones or use terminals run by American companies, such as Chase, Global Payments, Square, and Stripe.

A system that inconveniences a judge today could, in theory, be turned against a whole country tomorrow. The United Kingdom is reportedly exploring a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard over fears Trump could use United States–owned payment providers to freeze its economy. European officials have warned the continent is dangerously exposed to such coercion.

Canada had a taste of that vulnerability during the 2022 Rogers outage, which affected over 12 million subscribers (including Interac). It was estimated the economic cost to the broader Canadian economy was $142 million. Cloudflare’s global outage in 2025 only lasted about six hours but was estimated to cost Shopify over $4 million (US).

use terminals run by American companies, such as Chase, Global Payments, Square, and Stripe

Many of the other issues could be somewhat under customer control (such as choosing interac or cash), but not this one.

That would take the businesses to work together to find a solution. And I don't have high confidence in that happening.

Helcim is an alternative I just found.

No, just use what the EU does. They're bigger, their rules are better, and with more than one member state it's harder to be cut off than with America.

Honestly, it's a big undertaking to get our own snowflake charging system built and tested, and the EU one will be good enough -- especially if we're all working on it together.

Yes, yes, yes. When I learnt about the Wero I sent emails to the offices of the presidents of the big five and many different credit unions requesting Canada look into it.

They have started with the Wero. I so want Canada to join in that I have sent letters (emails) to the offices of the Big 5 and many different credit unions requesting it.

96% seems low, 4% of transactions use what amex? We do not have a credit card thing of our own unless you count over drafts on interact.

Yes, there is no reason not to, frankly the gov should facilitate it since it's such a brain dead easy thing to copy and run.

Middle men services should just be run by the gov if they're going to exist.

I'd rather us strengthen ourselves then continue being dependent on others when we don't have to.

How about running something directly on Interac? The big banks wouldn't have too much to do other than allow their customers to move from the bank's Visa/MasterCard to a new and equivalent Interac card, with the same bank.

It's potentially a win-win for them because they don't lose any customers, and get to stop paying the credit card companies (though I guess they have to start paying more into Interac)

They need to get off of US tech. Be that through their own payment cards or joining the EU's, it's their choice.

Not. Just. Canada.

To strengthen ourselves we need to make stronger ties with others. There's no use having a Canada-only payment system. We need a payment system that makes it easy for outsiders to buy Canadian (and vice versa).

The problem we have now is that we have only ONE country's providers, beholden to ONE country's governmental whims to do international transactions. We need something that is truly transnational instead of trusting a single country to be reasonable for all time.

Amex and Discover and Diner's Club and several store brands and ...

Yeah like a second account that a credit account.

Yes, everyone should

Have a payment system that can interact with others but also be independent. What is the point a bout being tied to Europe. They are fine now but everyone thought that of America.

Can we please replace VISA, Mastercard, AMEX and Discover with Wero, Pix and JCB?

Perhaps the words "truly transnational" were unclear above.

Yes! Let's make the cost of borrowing reasonable again. There should be some sort of law to restrict how much interest money an authorized institution should be able to receive. Interest only exists as a math calculation. Hell, tie it to your SIN, have the government deposit a million dollars for every baby born, then let prudent investment create an income for life.