Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to offer a few introductory remarks on the Retail Payment System Bill. Transactions, the exchange of money for goods and services, are a fundamental part of our economy. What makes these transactions possible is the retail payment system. These are elaborate networks that process different payment types, and the ones we're most familiar with, of course, are credit, debit, and EFTPOS card payments. The costs of operating these networks are, ultimately, passed on to merchants in the form of fees and then subsequently, in large part, on to consumers.