All right. Now, I didn't bring a speech with me, so we'll see how I do.
I'll first mention that I'm here representing about 7,500 Canadian members of ACORN and a number of people who are non-members but who are the working, and quite often struggling, families and individuals.
I have a number of concerns that I've been asked to address. The first one is that of NSF charges, and the fact that they've been increased to substantially high rates. The people I represent do not feel that NSF charges right now reflect the administration costs. We feel that NSF charges generally fall on working individuals and on those who are struggling to meet the bills. As a result, banks are directly profiting from struggling families and individuals.
You're going to find, as I go through this, that there are several aspects in which we feel this is happening. It's quite difficult for the people I represent to deal with.
I'd like to quickly comment on standard bank fees. From my understanding, if people have $1,000 or more in the bank, quite often they will avoid a number of bank fees that most people will incur. Why is it that when people have $1,000 in the bank, they don't have to pay these fees, but when people are struggling to pay the rent and they can't make that $1,000 income, they are the ones being hit with these bank fees?
Of course, as it was a hot topic earlier, I have a few comments on ATMs. Due to the presence of white label ATMs, we're finding that there are fewer and fewer bank-owned ATMs. Quite often we see that in low-income neighbourhoods. All of a sudden, a large population is finding it very difficult to reach those ATMs.
Additionally, banks at this point have been denying some people I know, and some of my neighbours, access to bank services in total. That goes into another aspect: privatized industry. I have people who can't go to a bank to cash their paycheque. They find themselves going to Money Mart or payday lenders. Banks are investing in these, turning customers away from their own banks and saying, well, you're going to have to go to this company, which is now charging rates outside of anything that banks are being legislated.
There's not much need to mention the fact that banks are not charging ATM fees in the U.S. and Europe. However, it is worth mentioning that, from what I've been told, TD right now is not charging ATM fees to their U.S. customers. Why are they unwilling to provide that same service to their Canadian customer base?
With regard to the future of the finance industry, I think we see that banks are investing in private organizations, allowing them to skirt around the legislation currently governing them. We would like to see some kind of legislation put into things like the white label, the sub-prime mortgage companies, and payday lenders. It's quite often the struggling individuals, the people the banks are denying due to their financial status, who are being forced to pay higher rates for the services that banks generally would offer.
The last thing to mention is that from the studies I saw in a report I received, Canadian banks have some of the highest service rates and some of the highest profit margins seen internationally. We're quite upset to see that banks would be putting their bottom line above customer service, denying customers what it is they're asking for just for the sake of protecting their $18 billion profit margins.
I think that's where I'm going to wrap it and pass it on to the next person. Thank you.