Canada: Scheme & Network Compliance

Scheme & Network Compliance

Canada historically had among the world's highest interchange, and the negotiated reductions reframe domestic card-scheme economics. Visa and Mastercard cut domestic consumer credit interchange for qualifying small businesses to an in-store annual weighted-average of 0.95% (with online consumer-credit interchange cut 10bps), effective October 19, 2024, alongside a revised Code of Conduct for the Payment Card Industry effective October 30, 2024. The reductions are expected to save eligible small businesses around C$1bn over five years; small-business thresholds apply (Visa under $300k, Mastercard under $175k in sales), and the Code shortened complaint response to 20 business days. On the debit side, Interac imposes a point-of-sale surcharge cap of $0.25 per transaction (effective January 26, 2024), prohibits surcharging on remote Interac Mobile Debit, and increased its Debit Switch Fee to $0.02099 effective November 1, 2025 — the latter sourced from a Tier-3 vendor document and carried as a dated entry.