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Industry News

New card conduct policies handed down by Canadian government

By Joseph Trigliari

03/05/2010 - A revision to the Credit and Debit Card Industry Code of Conduct has been issued by the Canadian government, NACS Online reports.

The Canadian Convenience Store Association, however, still has concerns about card companies' business methods.

One major area of concern for the CCSA is interchange fees, which did not receive caps under the new conduct policy. The government did, however, place a restriction on service fees charged by retailers, much to the chagrin of merchants. This restriction will no longer allow merchants to place a nominal fee for lower-cost purchases, which merchants had been doing to cover debit payment costs.

"There is certainly room for improvement in the code and we advise that all appropriate opportunities be used to relate to the finance department further possible changes to benefit the convenience store industry," said CCSA president Dave Bryans, NACS Online relays.

Merchants did receive some positive news, though. The government now requires any fees handed down by debit and card networks, as well as acquirers, to be itemized in order to make the breakdown of discount rates across all interchange rates and fees more apparent.

Also, merchants that accept credit cards for payment processing no longer need to accept debit card payments from the same network and vice versa.

The original conduct policy was issued in mid-April, leaving the card industry with one month to adopt the changes, Yahoo News reports.

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