Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Again, I'm the acting director of the consumer affairs team at the Department of Finance. Some server data by the—

Finance committee  Is that better now?

Finance committee  According to some FCAC server data, they found that typically there's overrepresentation of indigenous peoples and newcomers to Canada, and people in lower-income quartiles who use high-cost loans and payday lending the most. We would expect that these groups would benefit the most from this measure.

Finance committee  Absolutely. In budget 2023, we illustrated an example. We talked about an individual named Hannah, who took out a $5,000 loan with a two-year amortization period—paying it back over two years. At the new rate—lowered to 35%—as compared with the current rate, Hannah will have saved $775 over the course of the loan.

Finance committee  Thank you for your question. Consumer groups have made several recommendations and suggestions in terms of how to improve the external complaints handling system. Some of the changes being proposed here are to provide the commissioner of the FCAC, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, with more oversight over the external complaints body system; and to improve the policies and procedures at these external complaints bodies that will be subject to the commissioner's approval

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  Absolutely. Thank you for the question. I'm the acting director of the consumer affairs team in the financial sector policy branch at the Department of Finance. This is one of the files we work on. Budget 2023 announced two things, essentially: first, lowering the criminal rate of interest to 35% and, second, implementing a cap on payday lending at $14 per $100.

Finance committee  Provinces have different caps in place currently. They range from approximately $18 per $100 borrowed down to $14 per $100 borrowed in Newfoundland and Labrador. Depending on which province they are in, they would save a few dollars per $100 borrowed.