Now let's talk about debit cards.
The debit card electronic payment system is one of the most successful globally. It is very popular with merchants and consumers. In can represent 60% of transactions for some food retailers.
Interac is a non-profit association that reflects current processing costs. The system costs the retailer only a few pennies per transaction and enables consumers to access their funds quickly, safely and at low cost.
Visa and MasterCard recently announced that they are entering the debit market starting this year. It must be understood that Visa and MasterCard currently operate outside Canada's legislative framework for debit cards and outside the control of the Canadian Payments Association. So we are currently in a unique and critical situation for the future and for the development of financial services provided to merchants and consumers both in Quebec and Canada.
Visa and MasterCard say that their entry into the debit market will benefit consumers and merchants since it will provide more competition. In fact, this will be a reproduction of the alleged competition that currently exists in the credit card market in Canada, which is a simple bidding for business by the issuers of cards and credit card companies. This situation will invariably result in increased costs paid by merchants.
In addition, Visa and MasterCard intend to offer benefits to buyers so that their debit products have priority routing at the point of sale. This will be accompanied by aggressive distribution of these new cards by the issuers.