In an increasingly cashless society, of course, it is easy for any one of us to forget just how important retail payment networks are. It all happens so quickly and so easily: money is transferred from our wallet quite virtually into a business as a payment for goods and services. But it's been apparent for some time now that in New Zealand these payment methods that we are so familiar with attract higher merchant service fees than they should. That's why in the 2020 election, the Labour Party took a manifesto commitment to reduce these fees and to bring them into line with comparable countries, and today we make good on that promise. This bill establishes a new regulatory regime that's concerned with the underlying causes of high merchant service fees. However, it also takes much more direct and immediate steps to lower the fees in a short time horizon and be clear that payment networks where those problems are most acute are designated immediately. 