For example is the Canadian Tire card just a Visa or MasterCard in disguise?
I’m switching to interact for as many transactions as I can but I would like to be able to cancel my visa if there’s an alternate.
There use to be a Canadian credit card called Chargex, it was launched in 1968 by TD, RBC and a few other big banks. It was acquired by Visa and today the only game in town is either Visa or MasterCard as other commenters have said.
Some history about chargex: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/click-click-how-the-people-s-credit-card-was-launched/article_45b4e25d-f8fa-5dd6-878f-13c94b639729.html
They’re just other cards in disguise.
Some of them are owned by Citibank, which makes them not Visa or Mastercard, but Citibank is still American owned. The other issue is that many stores in Canada are still owned by Americans or American companies.
I think you’ll find that many store cards are really Visa or Mastercard.
Many Canadian store cards used to be owned by the stores. Some of the department store ones were very profitable.
However, many firms ‘rationalized’ by getting out of what was seen as a financial services business line to focus on their core retail. Weston’s with PC Financial is an exception - but for many consumers there are other reasons not to go with Loblaws/PC branded financial products.
Almost all store cards are Visa or Mastercard branded as they rely on those payment processors to handle payments and for their security mechanisms
Only alternatives to CCs would be your debit card or money I guess.
