At the conclusion of virtually every sit-down restaurant meal, we found ourselves back in the days when the server presented the bill in a black vinyl folder. If you’re under the age of 30, you may not have heard about this process. After receiving your bill, you offer your credit card to be taken away to produce a slip of paper where you tally up a tip and then add your signature. With a pen. As in, actual math and handwriting.
Canadian banking never looked so good as on our trip to two U.S. states, Colorado and New Mexico. Back at home, we typically pay for a restaurant meal using a mobile terminal that requires only that you choose a tip and then either tap your card or insert it and key in your PIN. Simple, clean and quick, even if the pre-set tip amounts sometimes come off as aggressive.
Tap-based payments were available on our trip at coffee places, fast food outlets and national store chains. But not always. A few times I asked for tap and was told, “we don’t have that.” In those cases, I had to pull a payment card out of my wallet and slide it through a magnetic reader on the counter. Very old school.
In Canada, banking is dominated by big players like the Big Six banks and electronic network providers like Interac and Moneris. Yes, a Moneris networkrecently affected credit and debit transactions in some parts of the country for a short while. But overall, we have a seamless, modern national payment system that increasingly works on the idea of simply tapping your card.
The U.S. banking system is fragmented into hundreds of small local and regional banks, along with a few larger names. On our trip, we noticed BMO is a big player with multiple branches and ATMs. A familiar name in a banking world still partly operating on 1990s rules.Are you reading this newsletter on the web or did someone forward the e-mail version to you? If so, you can sign up for Carrick on Moneybecause it addresses a phenomenon I’ve definitely noticed over the years – pension envy.