They want you to pay to use your own money

I like using debit. I like it a lot.

Rather than carry around cash, or quickly become a victim of fraud via cheques, I can use my card and PIN.

Now, I have had my card # and PIN stolen, but PC Financial was diligent enough to clear it up and cancel the charges against me without any hassle.

But now Interac wants to become a for-profit competitive company.

Interac, the debit system in Canada, charges a flat fee averaging about six cents per transaction. However, Interac applied to the competition bureau to change its fee structure, leading to fears the restructuring will result in fees based on a percentage of the sale.

In addition to this is a concern that Visa and MasterCard will bring their debit cards to Canada with an interchange fee, rather than the flat fee now paid with Interac.

Consider this: if I spend $1 on debit, it’s equivalent in the fraction of a penny charge as spending $1000. But now they want to potentially move to a percentage charge. So to make a $1000 purchase, I would have to pay a few dollars, or the merchant would.

At a time when people are needed to spend money to keep our tanking economy going, threatening to enact new charges is not the way to go.