Interac Email Money Transfer (EMT) is a funds transfer service between personal accounts at participating Canadian financial institutions. The provider of this service is CertaPay, a division of Acxsys Corporation. If your bank is in Canada you will be able to send the world's first, interbank-based Interac Email Money Transfers.
Interac Email Money Transfers let you send and receive money quickly and easily right out of - or right into - your bank accounts. As of August 2006, only personal deposit account holders at one of the Big Five banks in Canada can send EMTs: BMO Bank of Montreal, CIBC, RBC Royal Bank, Scotiabank, or TD Canada Trust. However, any personal account holder in Canada can receive funds (see below).
An Email Money Transfer resembles in many aspects to an e-check. The money is not actually transferred by e-mail. Only the instructions to retrieve the funds are.
Unlike a cheque, the funds from an EMT are not frozen. An EMT cannot bounce, as the funds are guaranteed. As long as both sender and recipient bank at one of the participating institutions, the funds are sent and received instantly.
However, like any online banking mode of payment, EMTs are vulnerable to phishing. Many Canadians in areas where the Big Five banks don't have much presence or who don't bank online are penalized by a surcharge when receiving EMTs. Unlike a real giro, an EMT requires intervention from the recipient for every single transaction. An EMT goes stale much faster than a cheque (after 30 days, the EMT is automatically cancelled and the sender is notified by e-mail to retrieve the funds.)[1].