Key Information About Credit Cards

Set out below are links to webpages that will provide you with key information about credit cards in Canada:

• NEWS RELEASE: Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Must, At The Very Least, Require Banks To Prove Their Credit Card Interest Rates and Service Charges are Fair -- Mergers Not in Public Interest -- Competition, Service Study Needed If Merger Ban Reconsidered (January 21, 2008)
• NEWS RELEASE: If Conservative Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Doesn’t Act Now, Big Banks Will Recoup Their $2 Billion in Losses By Increasing Gouging, Cutting Loans to Creditworthy Businesses, and Continuing Excessively Risky Investing (December 6, 2007)
• WEBSITE ARTICLE: Banks pay credit card companies 1% to calculate currency exchange rate on out-of-country purchases, and then overcharge their customers 2.5% (CTV's "Canada AM", September 5, 2007 -- NOTE: video of interview on webpage link takes you to)
• WEBSITE ARTICLE: Banks pay credit card companies 1% to calculate currency exchange rate on out-of-country purchases, and then overcharge their customers 2.5% (CBC TV's "The National", September 3, 2007 -- NOTE: video of news piece on webpage link takes you to)
• WEBSITE ARTICLE: Banks' credit card operations charge a special extra fee to calculate the exchange rate on purchases made in other countries, a fee that is likely pure gouging  (Winnipeg Free Press, August 22, 2007)
• WEBSITE ARTICLE: Duff Conacher on CBC TV's Marketplace Calling for Federal Government Review of Bank Credit Card Interest Rates (February 27, 2005)
• Know Your Rights About Your Credit Cards, Calculate Credit Card Costs, and Other Credit Card Information (Link takes you to a webpage on the website of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, a federal government agency responsible for protecting financial consumers)
• Summary of 1997 Federal Government Committee Study of Credit Cards (NOTE: the study was never completed, and no committee nor agency or department of the federal government has studied credit cards since 1997, despite the ongoing concern that millions of Canadians are being gouged by excessive credit card interest rates and fees)