Interac: December 22 will be the busiest shopping day of 2017 in Canada

Tuesday 12 December 2017 | 09:58 AM CET

Interac has predicted that December 22, 2017, the last Friday before Christmas Eve, will be the busies shopping day of 2017 in Canada.

According to Interac's point-of-sale data, Canadians made over 24 million transactions and spent over USD 1.2 billion on Friday, December 23, 2016. This made it the busiest shopping day of last year, beating out the busiest day of the year prior (December 23, 2015) by 19% in the total amount spent.

It is expected that Friday 22 December will surpass previous days in terms of payments transactions. Most Canadians who answered the survey said that they disliked crowded stores and malls the most, followed by long lines at checkout (61%).

The report anticipates that contactless debit cards will be a preferred payment method as it helps customers checkout their products faster and speeds up ques.

"We've seen tremendous adoption of our contactless debit product, Interac Flash as Canadians used Flash more than 1.5 billion times this year, up 80% from last year. It's clear consumers and businesses are taking advantage of the convenience and speed of Interac Flash to get through checkout lines faster." said Martin Ho, Head of Core Products at Interac. "