Guides

An EFT credit sends money to an account and an EFT debit collects it with your customer's agreement. What each needs first, when the money moves and what can come back.

Canada's EFT exchange times and how to find your submission cutoff. EFT Rails calculates the earliest payment date and provides an expected settlement date.

What decides how much a Canadian business can send by EFT: the limits its bank sets, what a pre-authorized debit agreement allows, and how EFT compares with Interac e-Transfer and the Real-Time Rail.

How an EFT and an Interac e-Transfer differ for a Canadian business: addressing, limits, timing, batches, payment data and collecting, and which payments belong on which.

How an EFT and a wire through Lynx differ for a Canadian business: when the money settles, when it is final, the hours each runs, and which payments belong on which.

Learn when an EFT credit arrives in Canada, when debits move and when banks settle. EFT Rails calculates an expected settlement date when you create a payment.

When an EFT credit reaches the payee the same day: the branch, the Due Date and the exchange it must make, the hour the money must be there, and what to do when a condition is missing.

Take one payment by hand in the EFT Rails dashboard: pay or collect from a customer by EFT or Interac e-Transfer, choose the day, and email a receipt.

How to tell a business pre-authorized debit from a personal one, the transaction code each takes, and how long the payor can claim the money back.

The steps to collect by pre-authorized debit in Canada: get your customer's agreement, check who they are, send the terms before the first debit, then collect, and handle what comes back.

Whether an NSF fee can ride on a re-presented pre-authorized debit, how a returned-payment fee is collected instead, and what the PAD agreement must say.

How long a customer can claim a pre-authorized debit back, on what grounds, what their bank does, and what reaches the business that collected it.

When the 10-day pre-authorized debit notice applies in Canada, when a customer can waive it, and what happens if a confirmation or pre-notification is missed.

Pre-authorized debit and credit card compared for recurring billing in Canada: the authority each needs, when the money moves, how each fails, and how a customer disputes each.

What a sporadic pre-authorized debit is, the customer authorization each one needs, how it differs from set-interval and one-time debits, and how EFT Rails sends them.

When a payment is final on the Real-Time Rail, a Lynx wire and EFT, the exceptions the rules allow, how a sender asks for money back, and the checks that belong before you send.

Where ISO 20022 messages are used in Canadian payments: Lynx since its 2025 switch, the Real-Time Rail from the start, and EFT files alongside the older format, and what the messages carry.

The Real-Time Rail and Interac e-Transfer are not the same thing: one is Payments Canada's clearing and settlement system, the other a payment service. How they differ and how they connect.

The Payments Canada AFT file: 1,464-character records, an A header, credit and debit records in six segments, a Z trailer, field positions, and what gets a file rejected.

What the four-digit File Creation Number in a CPA-005 file is for, how it increments and rolls over, how banks check it, and why a duplicate gets a file rejected.

How to reconcile EFT credits and pre-authorized debits: when payments settle, the ways a payment comes back and by when, and how to match each one to your records.

A rejected EFT never reached the account; a returned one did and is coming back. The rules, the deadlines and what to do for a rejected file, a rejected payment and a returned payment.

Every Payments Canada return reason code for EFT credits and pre-authorized debits: what each means, whether the bank or the customer raised it, and which ones can be presented again.

What return code 901 allows: one more attempt within 30 days, for the same amount and nothing added. The rule, the timing and the steps after an NSF return.

How a lender collects loan repayments by pre-authorized debit in Canada: what the agreement must say, the notices before each change, and what to do when a repayment comes back.

For a lender sending advances by EFT and collecting repayments by PAD: when an advance leaves, when the borrower has it, when a repayment settles and when it can still come back.

How a loan advance moves as an EFT credit in Canada: the Due Date, when the bank exchanges it, when the borrower must have it, and what can come back.

What FINTRAC and the Bank of Canada each check about a payment provider, whether your business needs to register, and how to look a provider up.

How a payment service provider registers with the Bank of Canada under the Retail Payment Activities Act: the application, the fee, the national security review, the decision and the public registry.

How a Canadian payment provider must keep the money it holds for you apart from its own, what happens if it fails, and what to ask.

What the Retail Payment Activities Act asks of the provider that moves or holds your money, and how to check a provider is registered.