Finance committee  We have three board members who are appointed by the Minister of Finance--three independent directors. We also have a stakeholder advisory council that can provide advice to our board of directors. We have consumer groups represented on our stakeholder advisory council.

Finance committee  We basically would like to have consultations involving any stakeholders that have either expertise or interest in this topic. So the round table will be totally open to any stakeholders, including consumer groups, billers, or third-party service providers that have an interest i

Finance committee  We are projecting two potential conclusions or outcomes. First are things we could do totally on our own by looking at our rules. As you may remember from our last presentation, our rules have to be submitted, and the Minister of Finance has 30 days to disapprove any of them. If

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  I'll ask Mr. Kreviazuk to answer.

Finance committee  All financial institutions in Canada who make deposits are members of our association. That includes the banks, the caisses populaires, the credit unions as well as other members, such as the Bank of Canada, for example.

Finance committee  In differed fashion.

Finance committee  I'll start with the first question on the technical possibility. First of all, you have to realize that the clearing and settlement portion basically takes a day. I could ask my colleagues for more details on this, but basically if you do it within the cut-off time, the next da

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin, I'd like to thank you for having given us this opportunity to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in order to discuss the CPA and the process involved in bill paying. I'd like to introduce my colleagues, they

Finance committee  I mentioned that our consultation is due to be started in March, subject to our board's approval. We usually go for a 60- to 90-day period for public comment, and we do the analysis after that. We then have to go back to our board of directors to see if we need something else. R

Finance committee  There is no online, real-time, end-to-end processing that supports the payment of a bill. As I mentioned earlier, most consumer bill payments or the information respecting bill payments must flow to those foreign-related systems. So it doesn't matter the size of the organization,

Finance committee  You have to realize that there are cut-offs. In this instance you just talked about, you're doing it tonight, so you've missed the cut-off for today. As I mentioned earlier, it's not online in real time. Basically it has to occur the next day, and it still has to go through tho

Finance committee  You have the goods.

Finance committee  I suggest you ask the credit card associations, which are not part of the CPA's mandate. That's another group you may want to talk to.

Finance committee  We don't cover credit card transactions, per se. The only thing we cover is the settlement they do at the end of the day through our large-value transfer system. Paying a bill is part of our account, but a credit card payment is considered to be like any other bill payment.