Interac and Kijiji have partnered to integrate Interac Verified identity checks into Canada’s largest classified-ads marketplace, allowing buyers and sellers to confirm their identity before messaging, posting, or transacting.
Kijiji users whose accounts are held at participating Canadian financial institutions can verify their identity through the Interac service. Once verified, a badge appears on their profile, visible to other users. The integration draws on the same financial identity infrastructure that banks and government services rely on for identity confirmation.
Identity data stays within the Canadian trust framework rather than flowing to a third-party processor outside the country’s privacy jurisdiction. Interac has positioned its Verified service as infrastructure for the wider economy rather than a bank-only utility, and Kijiji is among the largest consumer-facing deployments to date.
Verified identity is positioned as a complement to Kijiji’s existing reputation system of ratings and reviews. Reputation tracks how a user has transacted in the past; identity verification establishes who they are. Together, the two signals address fake accounts and misrepresented sellers, the two most common vectors for marketplace fraud cited by Kijiji.
Later in 2026, Kijiji plans to introduce a second verification path for users without accounts at participating institutions. That option will involve scanning a government-issued ID document and completing a liveness check, extending verification access to a broader share of the platform’s user base.
Unlike platform-native identity approaches, Interac Verified does not require Kijiji to handle sensitive identity documents directly. The platform receives a verification result and a badge status rather than a copy of the underlying credential, which Interac has said reduces breach surface and limits the scope of personal data held by the marketplace operator.
Kijiji, owned by Norway-based Adevinta, operates the largest peer-to-peer classified marketplace in Canada, with listings covering vehicles, real estate, and consumer goods. Interac, owned by a consortium of Canadian financial institutions, operates the country’s e-Transfer payments network and has been extending its verification service into non-financial sectors since 2023.
Sources: Interac, Newswire Canada
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By Cass Kennedy
