A recent study by Visa Canada shows that 47% of Canadians think flexible payment options are preferential.
The survey fond specifically that women value flexible payment options more than men with 52% of women saying that it’s important versus 42% of men polled. The Prairie provinces had different findings with only 31% of women saying that it’s important versus 46% of men.
The study showed that 62% of Canadian millennials polled said that flexible payments are important — and of those aged 35-54, 45% said it was important while 38% of those over the age of 55 nationally want flexible payment options.
Atlantic Canada had the highest desire for flexible payments with 56% of respondents saying that it’s important, while only 38% of Prairie province residents expressed the sentiment.
The results indicate that there’s a demand on the part of Canadians on how they purchase and over the past year, there has been a 30% increase in Canadians adopting payment instalments.
To address changing consumer demands, Visa this week launched Visa Installments in Canada in partnership with Scotiabank and CIBC. More issuers will be added later in the year to provide flexibility during the checkout process as well as post-purchase.
For Scotiabank, the rollout is scheduled to begin in August 2021 and any eligible Scotiabank Visa credit card customer who chooses to take advantage of the new payment installment option (called Scotia SelectPay™) can split qualifying purchases they have already made on their card. In early 2022 CIBC will launch Visa Installments where clients can shop in person or online, and later convert eligible purchases of $100+ into installment plan payments through CIBC online banking or mobile banking.
Later this year, Visa is also planning to launch Visa Installments with Canadian issuers at participating merchants during the checkout process. This will provide those issuers’ customers making a qualifying purchase with their credit cards the choice to pay in installments during their transaction.
Installments are said to represent a growing portion of the payments market, accounting for over $1.7 trillion CAD of global payment volume. The Canadian market opportunity expected to be about $50 billion annually.
