Interac

The Interac Association (branded as simply Interac) is a Canadian nonprofit interbank network that links financial institutions and other enterprises for the purpose of exchanging electronic financial transactions. Interac was founded in 1984 as a cooperative venture between five financial institutions: RBC, CIBC, Scotiabank, TD, and Desjardins. Interac serves as the Canadian debit card system, as the traditional debit card providers (Visa and MasterCard) rarely provide debit cards in Canada. A 2010 request by Interac to become a for-profit organization was rejected by the federal Competition Bureau.

By 2010, there were over 80 member organizations and there were over 59,000 Automated Banking Machines that can be accessed through the Interac network in Canada and over 450,000 merchant locations accepting it.

Interac's head office is located at Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto.

Services

Interac Association is the organization responsible for the development of a national network of two shared electronic financial services:

Interac (Japan)

Interac is a Japanese comprehensive educational consultation company, founded in 1972. The name is an acronym for International Education Research and Analysis Corporation, although the company has never operated under that name. Interac originally concentrated on teaching business English, then shifted focus to providing Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) to public elementary, middle, and high schools. Interac provides teachers to schools around Japan.

The company has fifteen domestic branches within Japan, with associated offices in Salt Lake City and Oxford. There are approximately 100 administrative staff, and a teaching team of over 2500 ALTs and language teachers for English and other languages.

Clients

Interac has fifteen branches servicing over 7000 different client organizations. Mostly these are local boards of education to whom Interac provides ALTs. The scope of this teaching in public schools is quite large, and the estimate based on government figures is that about 17.33%, or 1 in 5.76 students, is taught by an Interac teacher weekly. About 10% of its business is in providing language instruction to companies such as Ito-Yokado,Honda, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and NEC, as well as Japanese governmental organizations such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency.