The march towards a “cashless society” was supposed to advance in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadians of all ages were compelled to do their banking online, and more Canadians became involved with smartphones and began to rely on them for more than web browsing.
Since 2019, Research Co. has been tracking the perceptions of Canadians on how we pay for things. When we asked about their purchases in the past month, the top two ways continue to be credit cards (amounting to 37 per cent of transactions) and debit cards (29 per cent), followed by cash (18 per cent), smartphone (seven per cent), e-transfer (also seven per cent) and cheques (two per cent).
These numbers show little fluctuation from our previous survey in 2023. As expected, smartphone payments are particularly popular with Canadians aged 18 to 34, amounting to 11 per cent of all of their purchases. Almost half of transactions completed by Canadians aged 55 and over (46 per cent) were finalized with a credit card—a significantly higher proportion than for those aged 35 to 54 (37 per cent) and those aged 18 to 34 (29 per cent).
The generational differences on cash are negligible, with 19 per cent of transactions for Canadians aged 18 to 34 and aged 35 to 54 requiring paper money or coins, along with 17 per cent for those aged 55 and over. E-transfers remain more popular than cheques among all age groups.
In a separate question, two-thirds of Canadians (67 per cent, up four points) told us that, in the past month, there was a time when they did not have any paper money with them and had to make a purchase of less than $10 with a credit or debit card.
Just over half of Canadians aged 55 and over (54 per cent, up eight points) faced this. The proportions are significantly higher for those aged 35 to 54 (72 per cent, up seven points) and aged 18 to 34 (76 per cent, up one point). These breakdowns show that the situation has not changed markedly for the country’s youngest adults, but their middle aged and older counterparts are finding themselves without paper money more often than a year and a half ago.
Still, while our own behaviour would outline a move away from cash, the embrace of new technologies is not universal. Canadians remain staunchly divided on whether they would like to see people relying on biometrics to make purchases. While 46 per cent are on board, 45 per cent are against it.
There are significant gender and age divides. While 52 per cent of men welcome the chance to pay with fingerprints, palm recognition or iris scans, only 38 per cent of women concur. Canadians aged 18 to 34 are more likely to regard purchases with biometrics favourably (37 per cent) than their counterparts aged 35 to 54 (48 per cent) and aged 55 and over (30 per cent).
On a regional basis, the appetite for biometric payments is highest in Quebec (49 per cent), followed by Ontario (46 per cent), 小蓝视频 (45 per cent), Atlantic Canada (also 45 per cent), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (41 per cent) and Alberta (38 per cent).
At this moment, just over half of Canadians (51 per cent) expect people to rely on biometrics to make purchases in the next 10 years—a proportion that rises to 53 per cent in Quebec, 56 per cent in Ontario and 62 per cent among those aged 18 to 34. Canada’s oldest adults may rue the possibility of encountering iris scans at their local coffee shop, but if most residents of the two most populous provinces can already imagine this occurrence, change may well be underway. •
Mario Canseco is president of Research Co.
Results are based on an online survey conducted from January 3-5, 2025, among a representative sample of 1,002 adults in Canada. The data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region in Canada. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
