šŸ‡ØšŸ‡¦ Monzo in Canada [Discussion]

Monzo Chat Travelling with Monzo
21

Status report from Canada right now:

CA card (v2) working perfectly at any POS machine that takes card (ā€œdebitā€) or contactless (ā€œtapā€), without fail (other than the time that payments went down so I had to use my backup credit card!).

Only thing that hasnā€™t been working for me is Canadian ATMs. They seem to work a little different to our cash machines in that they ask if youā€™d like to withdraw from your chequing (current), savings or credit account. Iā€™ve tried all of those options and none of them seem to work. I havenā€™t tried this with the prepaid card though so Iā€™m not sure if itā€™s just a quirk of the current account system or not! :smile:

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I was in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto back in May. I used Monzo throughout the trip and had no issues withdrawing money, paying at bars, pubs, restaurants, supermarkets and tourist attractions. :+1:

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Iā€™ve been trying to find a bank that doesnā€™t charge the $3 dollar fee.

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Does anyone know what Canadian banks donā€™t charge the $3 dollar withdraw fee? I feel like there must be one.

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In BC the National Bank did not used to charge a fee

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Iā€™m in British Columbia! Thatā€™s perfect, there is one in Victoria! Iā€™ll try that tomorrow. I tried TD Canada Trust, $3, Scotia Bank: $3, CIBC, $3, Coast Capital Savings ** small credit union, $3 charge. RBC, $3ā€¦luckily these banks are all grouped close together. I havenā€™t tried national bank or HSBC. Thanks very much for the help!

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HSBC charge $3 I think from memory

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Hmmā€¦National Bank must be special. Thatā€™s cool that withdraws are free, When did you use the banks in BC?

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years ago

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May have changed, Iā€™ll try anyway. I need to withdraw many times.

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rather than lots of little withdrawals a few big ones would be best

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RBC is $4 actually :stuck_out_tongue:

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34

They have started asking in most Canadian stores if you want to pay by Debit or Credit and what make the card is e.g debit MasterCard.

Weirdly debit seems to block the card from working at all (the terminal just wonā€™t accept it & no rejected transactions appear).

Saying Credit allows the card to work as normal so there is a top tip!

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Thanks for the tip. Iā€™m going to NYC on Friday so although not Canada, it might be a general North American thing so Iā€™ll remember to go with the Credit option. :smile:

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Good to know, this should never be happening with a chip terminal, as the terminal can see the AID list. Sounds like bad North American magstripe logic (debit is for the regional debit networks, in Canadaā€™s case Interac) has made it to Canadaā€¦ and on CHIP terminals now sigh. In a chip world, the terminal has an AID list, so itā€™s like triple badā€¦

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Had no issues since using credit. Weirdly some stores donā€™t ask and it goes through fineā€¦ so I guess it depends on the terminal provider and store.

Tried to swipe then realised magstripe was turned off ā€¦ dā€™oh!

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First, itā€™s weird if a store does ask if they have chip support. They can see the chip only has one AID.

Second, you canā€™t just swipe at a chip enabled terminal, the service code will make you insert the card. Otherwise the chip would be pointless

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39

Hi, this is because debit in Canada is interac, everything else is classed as Debit. So a mastercard regardless of how we see it is a Credit card.

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40

Thatā€™s pretty much what I said. My complaint is that, like US terminals sometimes have, this is downright bad programming. The terminal shouldnā€™t need to ask the customer if the Interac AID (or one of the US common debit AIDs in the US) is present. It can read the card and see that it isnā€™t!

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Why should any terminal ever ask what network you want to use? I found it very confusing in the US. Why should I choose debit or credit? What are the implications? Even with magstripe, why wouldnā€™t the terminal just use the debit network if presented with a Canadian debit card. Nonsensical.