Finance committee  I think that it's fair to say that there is a failure of understanding on the merchant side of the business. On the issuing side of the business there's a very robust disclosure regime that doesn't exist, and perhaps should exist, for small merchants. There are existing federal agencies whose mandates could be extended to bring some of the excellent work they've done in that respect.

Finance committee  Yes, they adopted specific price controls. I think it's important to note that the Reserve Bank of Australia has removed those restrictions at this point. Their reason for it is to see what happens.

Finance committee  It went from 145 to 136.

Industry committee  Well, their contracts generally do. Maybe Andrea could speak to that, because—

Industry committee  Well, we don't give notice to the merchants, but we always give at least six months' notice to the acquirers, who then turn around and give what notice they're required to give to the merchants.

Industry committee  It went from 145 to 136.

Industry committee  The models in Europe are maybe inapplicable because they apply to cross-border transactions, which don't exist in Canada. It's an EU regulation that applies. Australia is really the most extensive and comparable market to see what happens when these regulations are put in place.

Industry committee  I'm very afraid that outside of making sure that the competitive laws of Canada are working and that competition is governing behaviour, this will result in unintended effects, specifically a reduction in competition and an exiting of the market by small players, creating barriers to entry and those sorts of thing.

Industry committee  I think there's no doubt there has been a reaction to end-user pricing. I think that's an understatement. But as I mentioned to Mr. Thibeault, some of the numbers we heard mentioned yesterday were surprising, because they don't bear relation to the increases we put in place. In terms of the timing, I agree the timing is unfortunate, but the timing is not from this year.

Industry committee  Our gas rate went down.

Finance committee  The models in Europe are maybe inapplicable because they apply to cross-border transactions, which don't exist in Canada. It's an EU regulation that applies. Australia is really the most extensive and comparable market to see what happens when these regulations are put in place.

Finance committee  I'm very afraid that outside of making sure that the competitive laws of Canada are working and that competition is governing behaviour, this will result in unintended effects, specifically a reduction in competition and an exiting of the market by small players, creating barriers to entry and those sorts of thing.

Finance committee  I think there's no doubt there has been a reaction to end-user pricing. I think that's an understatement. But as I mentioned to Mr. Thibeault, some of the numbers we heard mentioned yesterday were surprising, because they don't bear relation to the increases we put in place. In terms of the timing, I agree the timing is unfortunate, but the timing is not from this year.

Finance committee  Well, we don't give notice to the merchants, but we always give at least six months' notice to the acquirers, who then turn around and give what notice they're required to give to the merchants.

Finance committee  Well, their contracts generally do. Maybe Andrea could speak to that, because—