Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing before the committee.
There has been a lot of discussion about transaction fees and other fees that are involved. I think there's a little bit of confusion as well.
I wanted to focus on the network assessment fee and the interchange rate. Both of those are actually set by the credit card companies, Mastercard and Visa, so I wanted testimony from both Mr. Ahluwalia and Mr. Dorey.
We know that the interchange fee is the small amount of money that a merchant pays when you make a purchase with a credit card or a debit card, and the fee will largely go to the credit card issuer. Again, it's set by Mastercard, Visa and others.
I want to say that some of the merchants, like grocery stores, gas stations or restaurants, have been known to raise their prices to cover that interchange fee. Could Mr. Ahluwalia and Mr. Dorey give testimony on the average interchange fees that Visa and Mastercard charge?