Mandatory reporting guide for payment card network operators

October 30, 2024

1. Introduction

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) supervises payment card network operators (PCNOs) to ensure they comply with their legislative obligations, voluntary codes of conduct and public commitments (collectively, “market conduct obligations”) that are overseen by FCAC.

As stipulated in section 5.3 of FCAC’s Supervision Framework, PCNOs must file specific information with FCAC including their complaint-handling procedures, aggregate complaints and compliance issues. As required to fulfill its supervisory activities, FCAC will request from PCNOs other information not addressed in this guide.

FCAC expects institutions to designate a compliance liaison to interact with the Agency and ensure filing requirements are met. The compliance liaison is a senior official serving as the regulated entity’s main point of contact responsible for communicating and liaising with FCAC on the regulated entity’s market conduct obligations.

2. Purpose

This mandatory reporting guide provides details about specific information PCNOs must file with FCAC. This guide complements FCAC’s Supervision Framework, published in April 2017 and in effect as of October 1, 2018. However, it is not intended as a substitute to the market conduct obligations monitored by FCAC. When in doubt, please refer to the market conduct obligations applicable to your type of organization.  

This guide covers the following topics:

3. FCAC’s use of mandatory reporting information

FCAC uses the information provided to monitor PCNOs’ compliance with their market conduct obligations and determine appropriate promotion, supervision and/or enforcement actions.

The data received serves additional functions, including but not limited to:

4. Complaint-handling procedures

PCNOs, Acquirers and Downstream Participants  must have a clear, simple, and transparent complaint handling process  in place  that investigates code-related complaints from merchants in a timely manner. The Code of Conduct for the Payment Card Industry in Canada (Code) states that:

Acquirers and/or Downstream Participants must investigate all complaints within a reasonable time and provide a substantive written response to merchants that consists of either an offer to resolve the complaint or a denial of the complaint with reasons.

A merchant must be provided the following promptly after their complaint has been investigated and addressed:

PCNOs must investigate all merchant complaints received from Acquirers, Downstream Participants, FCAC, or directly from merchants, and work to find an appropriate resolution. A PCNO must communicate the outcome of its investigation directly to the merchant, and provide a copy to the Acquirer and Downstream Participant, within 30 business days of receiving the complaint.

Nothing in the above process restricts the merchant from filing complaints directly with FCAC at any stage of the complaint process. Although FCAC does not act as a complaint resolution body, FCAC may open an investigation to determine if the issues identified in a merchant complaint reflect a PCNO’s non‑compliance with Code obligations.

All disclosures and communications required under the Code, whether provided in writing or digitally, must be presented in a clear, simple and non-misleading manner. This includes communication with merchants concerning responses on Code-related complaints.

Complaint-handling template

FCAC, in consultation with the PCNOs and Code participants, created a common template to facilitate the submission of a merchant complaint. The template must be used by PCNOs and Acquirers and/or Downstream participants, and  posted prominently on their respective websites. This template can be found under Common complaint-handling template for payment card network operators and acquirers (PDF, 93 KB).

For more information on the complaint-handling procedure obligations, please refer to the Code of Conduct for the Payment Card Industry in Canada.

5. Aggregate complaints report

A reportable complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, involving a market conduct obligation (i.e., a legislative provision, a voluntary code of conduct or a public commitment), that has been received by or forwarded to the PCNO.

On a semi-annual basis, PCNOs must be informed of all Code‑related complaints received by Acquirers and their Downstream Participants, including the market conduct obligations, the outcome of the complaints (resolved or denied with reason), and whether the complaints were escalated or referred to the Acquirer and/or PCNO by a merchant, Code participant or FCAC. The PCNOs must report the above information to FCAC on a semi-annual basis.

In adopting the Code, PCNOs agree to provide to FCAC any information it requires regarding actions taken by themselves, Issuers, Acquirers, or Downstream Participants for the purpose of monitoring ongoing implementation of the Code. FCAC reviews aggregate complaints from PCNOs; however, relevant legislation permits FCAC to request detailed information on individual complaints.

If a complaint is identified as a reportable compliance issue, it is the responsibility of PCNOs to report this information using the appropriate form within 60 days of identifying the issue, as per FCAC’s Supervision Framework.

Aggregate complaints report template

PCNOs must report the  required complaints information to FCAC  , using the following template Reportable complaints aggregate report.(PDF, 182 KB).

A reportable Code-related complaint must be forwarded to FCAC even if :

The aggregate complaints report contains a section for “nil” reporting, to be used only as applicable.

Deadlines to file the aggregate complaints report

Below are the deadlines to file complaints reports to FCAC each quarter in an aggregate format (i.e., the number of reportable complaints received, classified in relation to each relevant market conduct obligation): 

6. Reportable compliance issues

According to section 5 of FCAC’s Supervision Framework, PCNOs must submit reportable compliance issues to FCAC.

Definition

A reportable compliance issue must meet the following three criteria:

Criterion 1: The issue must be a breachFootnote 3  of a market conduct obligation.

Criterion 2: The issue would normally be reported to or identified by the PCNO.

Criterion 3: The issue meets, at a minimum, one of the following:

The compliance issue may have been identified through various means including, but not limited to:

If a compliance issue has already been reported to FCAC through the normal reporting of a reportable complaint, it should still be reported as a reportable compliance issue and linked to the initial report.

A reportable compliance issue must be reported to FCAC even if:

Required use of reportable compliance issue template  

Each compliance issue must be reported to FCAC using Reportable compliance issues summary report (PDF, 827 KB).

Deadline to file reportable compliance issues

PCNOs must submit any reportable compliance issue within 60 calendar days of the compliance issue being identified or reported.

7. Contact FCAC

If you have questions related to your mandatory reporting obligations, please contact FCAC at compliance@fcac.gc.ca or the lead FCAC supervisor assigned to your organization. All required reports should be sent to this email address in accordance with the deadlines stated above.

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