Industry committee  Yesterday.

Industry committee  We are. They take their statutory duty to protect the interests, but--

Industry committee  I've been very open as to our governance challenges and the challenges of any association model where an organization is governed by its very users. It's tremendously difficult to gain consensus, and it moves at the pace of the slowest. I think it's important to note that the boa

Industry committee  To your first question, you're right, we're like a wholesaler, so we provide a fee to the acquirer, who then adds other services. We're an operating cost to them--and you're right, it does reach the merchants. I am not here to prescribe legislative remedies or any prescriptive

Industry committee  We are, as you know, in discussions with the bureau on restructuring ourselves internally so that we have the same capabilities as our competitors. But the second is that we need to ensure that consumers and merchants are making overt and open, informed choices in the marketpla

Finance committee  We're mandated under a cost recovery basis. Our flat-rate switch fee increases or decreases on an annual basis based on the operating costs and needs of the network in any given year. For example, historically, our fee has vacillated only from 0.4¢ to 0.8¢, and it depends on the

Finance committee  As I was saying on the priority routing issue, when you have two competing networks on the same card, it does raise some issues of transparency and choice for the consumer. I would agree with you. I think it's interesting that neither MasterCard nor Visa allows each other's appli

Finance committee  It's stronger than that. When I joined Interac two years ago, and we started the conversations with the Competition Bureau shortly thereafter, Visa and MasterCard were in the process of entering the Canadian debit market. They are here. There are over one million cards.

Industry committee  We're mandated under a cost recovery basis. Our flat-rate switch fee increases or decreases on an annual basis based on the operating costs and needs of the network in any given year. For example, historically, our fee has vacillated only from 0.4¢ to 0.8¢, and it depends on the

Industry committee  As I was saying on the priority routing issue, when you have two competing networks on the same card, it does raise some issues of transparency and choice for the consumer. I would agree with you. I think it's interesting that neither MasterCard nor Visa allows each other's appli

Industry committee  It's stronger than that. When I joined Interac two years ago, and we started the conversations with the Competition Bureau shortly thereafter, Visa and MasterCard were in the process of entering the Canadian debit market. They are here. There are over one million cards.

Finance committee  You're correct. From what I heard at the end, we charge a flat fee to the acquirer of 0.8¢, and then together with the other services they provide to the merchant, they would bundle that into their contract with the merchant.

Finance committee  In answer to your first question, our fee to the acquirers is less than a cent; it's 0.8¢. That's charged to the acquirers. And no, the issuers don't receive royalties from the point of sale transaction.

Finance committee  In the Interac model, Interac charges the acquirer less than a cent to process that transaction from the merchants into the system. We also charge the issuer the same flat fee amount to process the transaction on the other side into the account to ensure that the money is availab

Finance committee  We charge the acquirer 0.8¢ to process the transaction. Of course, the acquirer has a contract with that merchant and provides other services in processing and the terminal that sits on the point of sale at the merchant location. We're part of their operating costs. They would ha