Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable members, for giving me this opportunity to tell you about Interac Association. In a private not-for-profit association, our eighty-plus members have cooperated to build a national payment network that allows Canadians to access their money

Finance committee  As I think you know from the previous day's testimony, that is solely in the power of the institution or merchant, whether it be an airport or university, that controls those premises. That is not controlled by the ABM operator; it's usually an RFP process that goes out. Many of

Finance committee  That's correct. We're a not-for-profit association, so we only recoup our operating profits in any given year for the activities that we provide within the network. And those activities are, number one, as I said, we operate the systems that link the various members' systems toge

Finance committee  They are among our members, the white label providers. They do connect to us in various ways, but the same premise would apply in that we do not partake in the funds and the different costs.

Finance committee  Again, because Interac is not involved with setting or regulating prices or with the economics of our members, I can't speak to the profits or fees that are levied by those members. We have no purview there, so I can't comment on a marginal cost basis.

Finance committee  I think that is an issue. The scenario you painted is a possibility. Perhaps a greater possibility would be that the regulation of the bank side, the 32% side of this marketplace--and one of the witnesses mentioned that consumers usually act rationally in a marketplace--would pro

Finance committee  As I said before, I think we must be careful. We're here to talk about the ABM industry, whether consumers are being adversely affected and whether this industry is competitive. My colleagues keep branching out into an overhaul of the banking system, whether it's in the rural are

Finance committee  You're referring to the surcharge fee.

Finance committee  Correct. My belief--and I think the market is playing it out--is that the fee introduced a business model that has led to more choice and convenience for Canadians across the country. We can see that in the way the industry has exploded from 1996 to today.

Finance committee  So is your question specifically whether the costs are all fixed versus variable?

Finance committee  I can speak to the costs that are within the purview of Interac. In my previous life, coming from a technology company that provided outsource services, certainly no. A number of those itinerant costs are data processing ones. Every time you pass a message through the telecommuni

Finance committee  Our services interconnect the various nodes that sit on the network. Fourteen direct connectors sit on the network. They are responsible for having a physical link with every other direct connector so there's no point of failure. Interac is responsible only for the infrastructure

Finance committee  No, it is not, unequivocally.

Finance committee  They do not.

Finance committee  You have a mix. Most are medium-sized privately owned companies. A member of ours opened Moneris Solutions, which was publicly traded, I believe, and now has gone back to being private. They are medium-sized, to the most part, Canadian businesses.