Canadian Tire Money: A Different Way to Pay

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Canadian Tire has definitely succeeded in distinguishing itself from all competitors by incorporating its own form of money, "Canadian Tire Money". According to Francine Kopun, "In 1961, Canadian Tire began issuing the money in stores, hiring one of the Royal Canadian Mint’s official printers to produce the currency. It is still printed by the mint today" (Kopun, 2014). This means that this type of currency has been produced for over 50 years! 

What this money does is that it acts as real money. For example, if a Canadian Tire customer had $10 in Canadian Tire money, they could purchase any product(s) worth up to $10 and pay for it using that money, rather than Canadian dollars. Like I mentioned previously, if you own a Canadian Tire credit card, you have the opportunity to earn a certain amount of Canadian Tire money depending on how much you spend on your credit card. This money is also handed to you at the checkout by the cashier when you are finished paying for your items. It ranges slightly depending on how much you buy. 

So up until last year, this form of currency used to only be produced in the form of paper. However, just last year, Canadian Tire had the genius idea of turning their money into plastic. Check out the following article for an interesting story regarding this new era 

http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/spending_saving/2012/02/15/canadian_tire_money_goes_plastic.html.

This creation has sparked a lot of interest and curiosity to other organizations and consumers. People who collect Canadian Tire money and/or credit cards now have a card that looks just like a credit card, only it acts as a way to keep track of Canadian Tire money. And now, instead of using Canadian Tire paper money, customers can now simply use their money with the swipe of this card. The screen and cashier also tells the customer their balance on the card and can add money to it with every purchase. 

I think this is an extremely clever breakthrough because not only is Canadian Tire one of the only big organizations that use their own form of currency, but now instead of customers always having to count and keep track of their paper money, they can simply carry this card with them at all times to pay. 

If you have any feedback regarding Canadian Tire's custom currency, please use the comment section below to respond.

References

Kopun, F. (2014, September). Canadian Tire money across the decades. The Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/09/09/canadian_tire_money_across_the_decades.html