Weekly News Watch 19

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This past week, we have seen several interesting pieces of news come out this week.

One of which was the recent figure of $300 million being the cost of processing fees if Visa Canada acquires just 20% of the debit market next year. This figure comes from the Retail Council of Canada, and as it stands, they will be presenting this figure at the pre-budget consultations with the House of Commons Finance Committee in Ottawa.

For consumers, in order for merchants to counter these processing fees, the price of goods and services might become higher.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has said he has plans to introduce a voluntary code of conduct for the debit market; however it has been unclear on when it will be released.

Flaherty has to raise consumer and merchant protections in the multi-billion dollar credit and debit market. One of the most controversial industry practices that have to be rooted out is double cycle billing.

The voluntary code of conduct that Flaherty is bringing out, is supposedly not going far enough with the problems at hand, especially double cycle billing.

Visa Canada also countered the allegations of charging 30 cents to process an average $50 transaction; the interchange fee amounts to just 17 cents in this instance.

MasterCard has not released any figured yet, however they have noted that to will be substantially cheaper than the existing Interac Association.

Only time will tell what will have to the future of the debit card market, let us hope next week brings more information concerning this matter.

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• Visa Debit Processing Will Cost $300 Million
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• Credit Card Industry on Notice
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