Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am the leadoff hitter today and I am very happy to be here. Thank you very much for the invitation to update the committee on how FCAC is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. As suggested to me, I will be speaking only in English to avoid any

Finance committee  It is well understood that there were increasing concerns—and certainly our research supports those concerns—about the high level of indebtedness of consumers generally, and particularly those consumers whom we consider vulnerable. I mentioned in my opening remarks our financial

Finance committee  I'll take that one. Thanks, Ruth. The current situation, of course, is very difficult for all Canadians, and particularly difficult for those who had less financial resilience to start with. This is an area of concern for us. We do not have any particular insight into bankruptci

Finance committee  I have a quick reference. We did an infographic that's on the Government of Canada website. I don't have the numbers in my head, but it's actually a pretty good picture that translates into an interest rate. If you wanted to just go to governmentofcanada.ca/moneypaydayloan, you'l

Finance committee  We do have a concern about that. We are seeing an increased level in scams. I would guess everyone on this call has had those telephone calls. We have embedded alerts against fraudulent behaviour in our information and have been working to update the information with the Canadian

Finance committee  I don't have particular information about levels or targeting. I would say anecdotally that it would appear as though there has been an increase in these scams and that the response is elsewhere than the FCAC, except to say that we view it as part of our education mandate to try

Finance committee  Sure. We call it the seniors code. It was agreed to last summer, about a year ago now. It was negotiated with the Canadian Bankers Association, and all members of that association have signed on to it. We view that as an excellent first step in recognizing that there are speciali

Finance committee  That's such a great question. Thank you so much. Comparisons are difficult. We do have one international study that compared Canadian 15-year-olds internationally, so we have that, and we scored very high. Ruth will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we were tied for second.

Finance committee  Well, we certainly do see this as a great example of why you should care about your financial resiliency. We've described that as having emergency savings or a cushion, with the ability to withstand unexpected shocks. There could be no better example than this, I would say. It is

Finance committee  I'd just like to clarify the question. Is it on the point about payday loans and the interest rate? Is that the question?

Finance committee  Thank you. We share the concern, which is why we have tried, as graphically as we can, to put that information on our website. It's not just on our website, of course; we share that through our networks and try to get that information out. We do not have authority. That's not p

Finance committee  Perhaps I'll first explain where we fit in the credit card network operators, because it's a complicated area, with many parties. The network operators like Visa, Mastercard and Interac also work with individual parties like the merchants, the banks that issue the credit cards,

Finance committee  I'm going to ask Teresa if she has some information on an international comparison of fees. As I say, we monitor compliance with the code of conduct, as opposed to setting fees or regulating fees. Just before we see if Teresa has something to add, I'll just say that the relatio

Finance committee  Just to clarify the question, are you asking what FCAC has levied?

Finance committee  Any administrative monetary penalties that we have levied are available on our website. They are publicly disclosed. I do not have a total to provide you.