Review of the Handling of Public
Money Project — Final Report
4.4 National Bank of Canada and Other Financial Institutions
The NBC processes 35,000 HPM receipts per month on average. Banking costs are shared between PWGSC and CIC; PWGSC pays banking operations costs and CIC pays the costs associated with data capture. (Section Removed)
As identified in section 5.0, (Section Removed) even though 95 percent of HPM receipts are available to the CPCs within five days of payment. (Section Removed) This process is not specific to HPM; it is used across the banking industry whenever an institution accepts and handles payments for services not specific to that institution. (Section Removed) This delay can be partly attributed to the small number of receipts they receive daily (they may wait for them to accumulate before sending them) or to these institutions being in remote locations.
(Section Removed)
There are still instances today where banks are unaware of or refuse to accept HPM payments, or issue a certified cheque to the client payable to CIC. Some of this problem can be attributed to the small size and the remote location of a particular financial institution and to the fact that it rarely deals with CIC business.
(Section Removed)
However, when the NBC is notified by HQ of a problem, it takes immediate action to contact the branch. A survey conducted during the HPM pilot review in 1998 indicated that approximately 5 percent of respondents had paid a bank charge. Today, this problem is basically non-existent, as the HPM receipt has been modified to state that there is no charge for paying at a financial institution. The NBC has been very accommodating to CIC since HPM’s inception, especially in the pilot stage, where technical difficulties caused implementation delays. A partnership has now been developed between the NBC and CIC.
Recommendation 8
(Section Removed)
Management Response
(Section Removed)
Recommendation 9
(Section Removed)
Management Response
(Section Removed)
- Date Modified:
