E-transfers sucked for the first decade because there was a several dollar fee associated with them, making them impractical for small amounts. I’m miserly so I low-key dreaded ordering takeout with other staff on night shifts, and having to pay the fee to square up with the person who ordered.

As an aside, there was an e-purse pilot sometime between 1996-1998 in Southern Ontario. It may have been Visa or MC driven rather than Interact/Acxsys.

I remember seeing a booth at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1996 where they demoed a smart card that could be used for web transactions (!) using a floppy drive adaptor (!!).

1990s fintech was wild.