Thank you, Chair.
And thank you for the presentation.
I think the problem of the clearance system is that you're being hoisted by your own petard. What you appear to have is an instant system when in fact you don't have an instant system. As you properly described, it goes from a bank account to a batching system to another batching system and to the creditor, and frequently it is a two- or three- or four-day process.
Your entire system is based upon the notion of cheque clearances and things of that nature, just as everybody did in the old days. What I see as the problem is that you, in some respects, have sold Canadians an illusion. I'm not criticizing you personally, but the financial system. You've sold Canadians an illusion, because when I am sitting at my computer paying my bills online, doing my own batching, if you will, I'm thinking that when I see the money removed from my account—and therefore inaccessible to me—I have somehow or another paid my VISA bill, when in fact I haven't paid my VISA bill. I'm not going to be able to pay my VISA bill for two days, or some such time.
What I see as the problem, Mr. Legault, is that this is simply a failure of coding, if you will. And here I use VISA as an example of a large creditor that receives money daily—in fact, hourly, or every minute—in saying that, really, the coding of my VISA card on my computer could be set up so that when the money came out of my bank, it really went instantaneously around, or through, the batching system. You could code this on my computer so that could happen.
Is that technologically possible, is my first question? And if it is technologically possible, is this simply a failure of will, if you will, or a lack of intention to put resources into a system that could make what appears to be instant in fact instant?