And it is a particular pleasure for me to speak before the Economic Club of New York today. The last time I spoke here was on 14 October 2008. At that time, we were in the eye of the storm, with fresh and acute challenges to the global financial system arising by the hour.
One example is the practice of blended surcharging, where a merchant might be recovering costs on an average basis without distinguishing between high- and low-cost card payments. Another would be where a surcharge simply exceeds any reasonable estimate of the cost of acceptance.