I applaud the Canadian government's forward thinking about the regulation of their electronic payment system. A national cashless payment infrastructure in any country is the most important entity in an economy for the convenience and security of all credit and debit card holders as well as all retailers. All other considerations, such as credit card reward schemes, credit card surcharges that are above the cash price and interchange fees, detract from it and are secondary to it.

Both credit and debit card surcharges and interchange fees should be made illegal in every jurisdiction where they have been introduced. This is so it may be for the benefit and convenience of all credit and debit card holders as well as keeping these costs on all businesses as low as possible, and for the promotion of a nation's electronic payments system over cash payments.

Cash will have a diminished life in any national economy until it will eventually be phased out entirely in future. In a future cashless society, what would be the point of having interchange fees and credit card surcharges in the absence of cash payments?

Even if any national currency was digitised in future by any nation's Reserve Bank in conjunction with the objectives of a national government, making use of the security, integrity and efficiency of the blockchain or distributed ledger, in order that consumers can use a fee-less method of payment, there would still be a need for abolishing all credit card fees as well as all interchange fees imposed on businesses. This legal provision would be for the long-term interest of any national economy and the common good of all consumers and businesses.

Again, it is the national electronic payments system and all who participate in it that are the most important entities; not the legal or regulated imposition of surcharges above the cash price for consumers, and interchange fees forced on businesses.

Part of this framework should be the regulated limiting of surcharges that credit card companies charge to businesses for accepting their card in a payment. The point of limiting credit card companies and banks regarding their surcharging of businesses is to ensure that this cost can be easily managed by them, so that it is not considered something that can be passed onto any consumer. A regime such as this can be supervised by any one of a number of existing federal bodies that are found in most national economies.