Might we see lower credit card fees for Canada’s small and medium sized businesses after the election?

ACTA is one of more than 25 trade associations that joined forces when the Small Business Matters Coalition (SBM) was formed in 2014 to represent the interests of Canada’s small businesses. Of concern at the time was the impact of credit card fees on small and medium sized businesses in Canada. Credit card fees reached their highest level that year.  About a year ago, SBM was pleased to share news that the Federal government was making progress toward a voluntary reduction in interchange fees with commitments from Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

Recently, Gary Sands, chair of the Small Business Matters Coaltion sent the following update to Members, including ACTA.  We share it with you for information, not as an endorsement for any one political party in the upcoming election. As you can see from the update, the SBM Coalition is challenging all political parties to make similar commitments to reduce the burden on small and medium-sized business in Canada.

The Small Business Matters Coalition, the largest voice of small and medium size businesses in Canada, applauds the announcement today by Prime Minister Trudeau, on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, to bring in further measures to help small and medium size businesses remain competitive.  In particular, the Coalition welcomes the move to eliminate the interchange swipe fees on GST/HST paid by businesses to the credit card companies.  These interchange fees are higher for small and medium size enterprises and our Coalition members thereby shoulder a disproportionately higher burden of these fees. The Coalition looks forward to seeing similar commitments from the other major parties over the course of the election campaign. 

ACTA is always supportive of measures that reduce the financial and/or administrative burden placed on our Member companies and we continue to advocate on your behalf with all governments and political parties.