Interac Acquires Canadian Rights to Vouchr’s Engagement Platform

Interac has acquired the exclusive Canadian rights to use Vouchr’s engagement platform.

This platform allows users to send and receive personalized multimedia notifications along with money transfers, and the deal will enable multimedia Interac e-Transfer notifications that can be customized by Canadian consumers and businesses, the companies said in a Tuesday (April 16) press release.

“As Canadians show increased preference for digital-first experiences, this transaction will allow us to boost engagement on the platform while making transactions a more personalized extension of daily life,” Anurag Kar, head of product, Interac e-Transfer, said in the release.

With this acquisition, Interac plans to leverage the Vouchr platform to enable personalized notifications, rewards and merchant offerings for its product suite, beginning with its e-Transfer offering, according to the release.

Once the platform is integrated with e-Transfer, Interac plans to offer customizable and engaging notifications focused on eGifting, the release said.

For example, e-Transfer users will be able to send “meaningful message that feature eCards, videos and GIFs embedded within the notification,” Kar said in the release.

Interac also plans to leverage the Vouchr platform to allow businesses in Canada to deliver company-branded Interac e-Transfer notifications to their employees, customers and suppliers, per the release.

For Vouchr, the deal “brings credibility and momentum, demonstrating the value our technology brings to other markets, Suresh Bhat, co-founder of Vouchr, said in the release.

Rob Balahura, co-founder of Vouchr, added: “Together we’re redefining the way Canadians can engage with money transfers and look forward to making every Interac e-Transfer transaction an opportunity for a more personalized, meaningful and enjoyable experience.”

The eGifting experience involving cash or a traditional digital gift card “is a pretty dry experience,” Bhat told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview posted in 2018. “But [what] we do is we add that layer of fun on top of that,” Bhat said.

Consumers and businesses alike now expect seamless digital experiences that challenge the status quo of traditional payment methods, Kar wrote in the PYMNTS eBook “2023 Payments New Year’s Resolutions.”

“At Interac, we’re focused on optimizing our solutions to help Canadians, Canadian businesses and the broader Canadian financial services ecosystem modernize their payment processes, educate about new solutions that drive value and enable a rapidly changing ecosystem,” Kar wrote.