Thank you, Ms. McLeod.
We heard from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business the concerns of a number of different organizations about credit cards and the cost to these individual organizations. So we put together a code of conduct for both the credit and debit card industry, specifically to protect small businesses. The simple fact is there needed to be clear information about the rates and fees that are charged. It wasn't as clear as it could have been, so in the code of conduct we said that these need to be better articulated, that there needs to be notification of any new fees or fee increases, and that businesses need to be able to cancel the contract without penalty if those fees are changed without notification to them.
So it's very simple and straightforward, but that wasn't the case before. They should also be able to choose whether they will accept only credit or debit payments without having to accept both. The co-badged cards that we're seeing now create some challenges.
Just last week—and we all know things are changing very quickly in the electronics world—we expanded an addendum to this code of conduct to actually have a consultation on how we deal with mobile payments. The fact is that in the very near future you may not even need to carry a credit card. It will simply be embedded in your cellphone or your smartphone. Other countries have been dealing with this. We've put out a consultation paper for 60 days and we're looking forward to some information. In fact I heard back from one of the financial institutions that told me it was good and was aimed in the right direction and would not be problematic for them.
Once again, it's about protecting not just the consumers but the retailers as well.