Industry Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

The main focus is e‑transfers, and there is supervision.

What is your process?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Yes and no. E‑transfers such as those done through Interac—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Chair, we are not on vacation here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Please, fellow members.

Please keep it quiet around the committee table and in the back as well.

Thank you, Mr. Savard‑Tremblay.

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Thank you.

The Bank of Canada is actually in charge of Interac regulations and e‑transfers, not our agency.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Do you have any recent reports on the competition practices of financial institutions and payment service providers?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

No, competition is not really our field.

However, we have a lot of information on the obligations of all financial institutions and whether their obligations are met or not. For example, when the commissioner sends us a decision on an irregularity or a non-compliance with the code, we publish it. It is well documented.

That's what we do in consumer protection.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Could those documents be submitted to the committee?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Yes, they are on our website.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Okay, thank you.

Have measures been put in place to ensure that e‑transfer fees remain transparent? Is that part of your area of expertise?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

Yes, transparency is included in our code of conduct, but it has to do with all fees consumers pay to their bank, including those related to e‑transfers. The transparency applies to both merchants and regular consumers.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

How will the agency protect consumers from the emergence of fintechs and the new payment solutions they offer, such as instalment payments, buy now/pay later, electronic wallets, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and cryptocurrencies?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

The code of conduct was renewed. It has been strengthened to ensure that new services and new players entering the ecosystem are included and subject to our supervision and consumer protection decisions.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I still imagine that it must be much more difficult to supervise all the online options that are being set up. Beyond the code itself, expanding it to cover new methods and including the options in the code, the way you supervise needs to be completely different.

It's a bit of a game changer.

[Frank Lofranco]

Thank you for your question. I will answer in English.

With respect to the code specifically, the payment card network operators are required to ensure compliance with the code across the network, including all the downstream participants.

Our role in supervising them involves many steps. First, by way of example, we review the policies and procedures to ensure that they will enable compliance. We also provide guidance to set expectations on the consumer protection measures included in the code.

Complaints are another important feature, so we do receive complaints reported by the payment card network operators. We also receive complaints from merchants. I'll use that as an example to say that when we receive these complaints, they are investigated. In the case of the payment card network operators, over the years there have been significant complaints about fees and complaint handling. As the commissioner noted in her opening remarks, we have seen improvements made in the new code to ensure greater transparency around fees and to improve timelines around complaint handling.

Those are some of the ways in which we supervise payment card network operators.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Generally speaking, did you note that consumers had the necessary information? Were they sufficiently informed about the new payment methods? Are these methods tracked, studied and risk-assessed by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

We do a lot of research directly with consumers.

Ms. Syal could describe our efforts in terms of dialogue with consumers.

[Dr. Supriya Syal, Deputy Commissioner, Research, Policy and Education, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada]

Thank you for the question, and thank you, Commissioner.

We work in a few different ways with consumers. We directly study consumers to understand what it is they understand and don't understand. Based on that, we do consumer education to help them understand the things they don't. We also do direct interventions with consumers. In the last four years, for instance, we have done interventions with just under 700,000 consumers, which have led about 200,000 of them to make better financial decisions about their money. The third thing is that we work, through the national financial literacy strategy, with ecosystem stakeholders across the country, who in turn run on-the-ground programs that we partner with them on, or run financial or digital literacy programs online and through their extensions.

These are all parts of the way we study what consumers know and don't know, and then we try to use those insights, as I said, to inform our educational material and the work we do with the Department of Finance on policy and regulation.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I imagine I'm out of time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I'm feeling generous, Mr. Savard‑Tremblay, because you were interrupted.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you very much for your generosity, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Miller, I understand your process, but I'll go back to the starting point of my question.

Generally speaking, do you find that consumers have all the information they need?

[Shereen Benzvy Miller]

It's hard to know if they have all the information they need, because I think more information is always needed in an information-based world.

We have a financial literacy strategy. Every aspect of that knowledge is required every day by people of all ages. All Canadians need this kind of information, from the age of three and throughout their lives.

I would also like to add that our efforts to make personal banking services information more accessible to consumers will add to the range of opportunities we offer to help people get the information they need in the financial sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our guests.

What is the rate of opting into the code of conduct? Has everyone in the financial sector been part of the code of conduct, including credit cards?