Sue Hutchison, President and GM for Equifax Canada, talks about cybercrime, the state of Canadians' credit ratings and their forecast for the Canadian economy and consumer spending for 2023
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host, I believe in the power of storytelling to bring the retail industry to life. I'll bring insights, perspectives and experiences from some of the retail industry's most innovative and influential voices each week. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Sue Hutchison, President and GM for Equifax Canada, talks about cybercrime, the state of Canadians' credit ratings and their forecast for the Canadian economy and consumer spending for 2023
About Sue
Experienced senior leader of change, with over 30 years in the financial services, credit and lending industries. In 2020, I joined Equifax Canada as President and General Manager.
Equifax Canada is a data, analytics, and technology company that believes knowledge drives progress. As a global data, analytics, and technology company, we play an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employers, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. With our passion for supporting our clients with powerful solutions for Canadians, we power the ecosystem with insights and knowledge to move people forward.
Prior to Equifax, Hutchison served as Senior Vice President, Product, Digital and New Payments for Mastercard where she led product strategy for their growing portfolio, which included fraud, multi-rail payments, and cyber and intelligence solutions. She has also held senior leadership roles at Payments Canada, D+H Corporate (now Finastra), HSBC and Bank of America. Hutchison received her Bachelor’s in Finance and International Business from the University of Guelph and her MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
Additionally, Hutchison is a board member of Home Capital Group, sits as an Advisory Board Member for Women in Payments and has served as a board member for the Canadian Payments Association, BC Women’s Hospital Foundation and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. My name is Michael LeBlanc, and I am your host. This podcast is produced in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada. In a wide ranging discussion Sue Hutchison president and GM for Equifax, Canada talks about cybercrime, the state of Canadians credit ratings and their forecasts for the Canadian economy and consumer spending for 2023.
Michael LeBlanc 00:24
Sue, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Sue Hutchinson 00:27
Very well. Michael, how are you?
Michael LeBlanc 00:29
I'm fantastic. Looking forward to speaking with you. So, listen, where am I finding you today, are you based in Toronto, or, you were on the road and yeah, I imagine you travel a lot. Where am I catching you today?
Sue Hutchinson 00:39
I am in Toronto actually working out of my home office today.
Michael LeBlanc 00:43
All right, and that's your base, you spend a lot of time on the road, I think you were in, you were down south, as in the US last week, yeah?
Sue Hutchinson 00:52
Yeah, yeah. I do. We have. We have quite a large team in Quebec and a number of customers there. So, I spend quite a bit of time there. We have clients all across the country, we really partner with really all segments, including, kind of, government, large banks, medium banks, fintechs and commercial businesses. So yeah, we've got, we've got a number of customers across the country and then of course, we're headquartered in Atlanta. So, I spend some time down there as well.
Michael LeBlanc 01:22
All right, well, listen, let's jump right in. Tell us a bit about yourself. What's your background and what you do for a living?
Sue Hutchinson 01:29
Yes, well, my background is mostly in financial services. So I started my career to spend a lot of time in banking, commercial and corporate banking and payments technology and spent some time at a large FinTech and find myself here today, I've been enrolled for nearly two and a half years as President of Equifax, Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 01:52
And where, did you always find you'd be in financial services? Like, was that a calling for you? Or did you, sometimes retail is described as the accidental career, I'm not sure the finance world works on accidents. But tell me a little bit about that.
Sue Hutchinson 02:07
Yeah, you know, I do have a Bachelor of Commerce and an MBA in finance. But I did not really want to work in banking and I, my very first career job, the company got bought, and I found myself out of a job after seven months in the corporate world and I was like, "wow, is this what it's going to be like?" and my, my boss at the time, I went to a bank, and he said, "You know, I think you'd be great here." and I was like, a bank, that sounds horribly boring and there I was, for, gosh, 15 or 20 years in banking to, to global banks. So, I actually had a lot of fun because there's a lot of different jobs you can do. I started on the client side, and then more in product management and technology and, and worked for global banks. So, they were fairly small here in Canada. So, I had kind of the opportunity to do, you know, what were, kind of startup entrepreneurial roles. It was actually a lot of fun.
Michael LeBlanc 03:06
Yeah, and I imagine, as is often the case, in Canada, when you work for large global companies, your remit is quite broad, versus very narrow and deep, right? So, you know, you run entire lines of business with a country versus, you know, I oversee ledger's for the left hand side of the room, kind of, depth that you kind of get into the US.
Sue Hutchinson 03:26
That's, yeah, it's actually, actually it's a really good point. Yeah, the, you know, the whole team is smaller, so you don't have such specialization. So, I, I was lucky in that I got to do a lot of different jobs and each of those, you're right, we're quite broad, versus some of my counterparts in the US where the, you know, the rules were, you know, slice quite thinly, I would say,
Sue Hutchinson 03:26
Well, listen. Equifax would be a very familiar name to the retail industry listeners, but tell us a little bit about Equifax other than you know, you told us a little bit about the scope, the national scope in the US, but who is Equifax and what do you do?
Sue Hutchinson 04:04
Yeah, so Equifax is known, you know, historically as a credit bureau. So, a credit bureau really prov-, provides scoring and data and insights on consumers and as well, businesses. You know, we, we're quite, that's the history. It's, I think, 100, over 120-year-old company and in Canada, you know, its roots are actually in Quebec, where it came to Montreal as the first international location.
Sue Hutchinson 04:35
Today, Equifax is really a data insights and technology company. So while we still provide a lot of the original sort of scoring and information around, on credit history, we also because we have so much data, we can also prove identification, and we do a lot of work in the authentication and ID space as well.
Sue Hutchinson 04:54
Here in Canada. We're actually the largest consumer bureau and we're the largest commercial or Bureau as well and we've gone through quite a, quite a transformation to, to cloud technology. So I've been fortunate enough to be the leader of the business through a pretty exciting, pretty exciting evolution of the business and a real milestone in its, in its history.
Michael LeBlanc 05:19
Let's start out with one of the most pressing issues, you know, ripped from the headlines, so to speak, cybersecurity, you've had your own cybersecurity incident back in 2017. I remember. So you definitely speak from experience, and you're a leader in helping businesses spot and stop these hackers, but what's your best advice based on your experience and recent impacts regarding cyber threats and, you know, in the case of a breach best, best practices, what, what can you what can you share?
Sue Hutchinson 05:49
Yeah, so you're right, we had in 2017, a cyber incident and was actually initiated by the Chinese military and so kind of six years later, we've invested about a billion and six in technology, and our avenue to success has been going to cloud technology, which is generally easier to secure and we've learned a lot of lessons along the way and, and really focused on being the best not only in our industry, but in all industries.
Sue Hutchinson 06:20
So, for the last two years our kind of rating where you, you'd be rated on cyber maturity, we would be top of the pack better than financial services, overall better than healthcare better than even government and that's a global rating. So we're super proud of that and, as I say, learned a lot of lessons along the way and we're very transparent in terms of really sharing our learnings and really best practices. So I think, you know, a couple of things, I think we would say is, is really establishing a security first culture. So, making sure that it's really primary on people's minds. And I think for small business and retail, it's, it's difficult, because you may not have as sophisticated a, a team as you would in some of the large, larger companies, but really making.
Michael LeBlanc 07:12
Or maybe you might not have a billion and six, to put into it
Sue Hutchinson 07:15
100%, you wouldn't have the investment or the or the support.
Michael LeBlanc 07:19
Cloud must help though, right? I mean, my perception is somewhat observational, less educational, is that cloud computing kind of shifts, at least a fair bit of the risk into folks who host those Clouds, whether it's, you know, as your Google or AWS like they, they take on a larger role and of course, you would hope they'd be a lot more sophisticated. I mean, the resources are X times what any retailer would have. Is that, is that a fair statement, is that how you look at these things?
Sue Hutchinson 07:49
Yeah, that's actually a great observation, Michael, I think, you know, if you think about trying to secure your own premises, whether you're a, you know, restaurant, or a hotel, or a bank, for that matter, you know, you're running, you know, legacy platform, in your, in your own kind of on-premise solutions. You're reliant on the sophistication of the technology, but also the team. If you think about Cloud, and you're right, you know, three big, big providers, they're going to be, you know, highly, highly sophisticated, and, you know, kind of a massive brand at risk when you think about all the data, they're taking care of. So, yeah, it's a, it's a good way to look at it, definitely.
Michael LeBlanc 08:33
Let's talk about governments, you know, have a wide listener base. So, let's talk about what governments can help in this, in this world of cybercrime. I mean, it feels like we need to follow the money. I mean, you know, cyber currency, Bitcoin or whatever these, these things have become the currency of cybercrime. Is there anything that from your perspective, again, so, so, so much experience with it? I'm sure it comes up all the time, is there anything that governments can be doing better, or get there, get, help get us, get our arms around them?
Sue Hutchinson 09:00
Yeah, I mean, I think the, you know, we have an organization for, called the Canadian Center for cybersecurity, and folks haven't seen it, you know, have a look, they do, they protect the government assets, but they also do a lot of information sharing and best practices on their website, but you're right, the challenge is for kind of smaller firms in terms of having the understanding and sophistication for sure. I think, you know, Bitcoin, etc. You know, they're, there's listen, these are new models, stable coins, Central Bank, digital currencies that are challenging, you know, the types of money we have, I think, you know, until these alternative, let's call them payment systems, if you will, you know, have the monetary stability in terms of holding value, having public trust and the financial stability, you know, that they're operational, they don't they're not subject to outages. Yeah, I think we have a long way to go before we see you sort of true replacements. Uh, what can we today consider, kind of common public money?
Michael LeBlanc 10:04
Yeah, it's hard to follow the money. Right? I think I think they've got, they found, they found their niche that is Bitcoin cyber currencies in crime and organized crime, but anyway, good luck
Sue Hutchinson 10:13
Yeah, 100% I think, you know, it's hard. So, you know, financial crime is hard to follow in the traditional, if you sort of the public private system we have, which is the public being the central banks, the private being the commercial banks, it's hard to follow Financial Crime and, you know, money laundering, etc, you know, these, these private networks, you're right, make it, you know, make it even harder. So I think, I think we're in for some changes in terms of how those are regulated or not, you know, I think until there's some sort of central authority, it'll be very difficult to, to have the transparency and the visibility we need.
Michael LeBlanc 10:52
Yeah, you'll probably still have that mix of organized crime and nation state actors, but at least you'll be able to have some, some way to follow the, follow money. Speaking of government, a note that you folks sent me talked about supporting proposed legislation to help the victims of human trafficking, from the negative impacts of coerced debt. Tell me about why you're involved in that and what your, what your focus is, and why you are clearly passionate about it and talk about it for, for a bit.
Sue Hutchinson 11:22
Yeah. So, you know, our vision or mission really is to help people live their financial best, so people can be consumers or businesses and an important issue where we had four of the political parties actually coming together to amend what is an existing bill to protect survivors of human trafficking. So when we heard that this was going to be, you know, proposed in the legislature, we said, you know, this is something we need to support. So, essentially, as I said, it's an amendment to a current bill, the consumer reporting and prevention, prevention of remedies for Human Trafficking Act and it's really to prohibit the inclusion of what they're calling coerced debt.
Sue Hutchinson 12:13
So this is a concept where victims of human trafficking have been forced to take out credit in their name, during your time of captivity and often those are student loans, their credit cards, and unfortunately, when these survivors, you know, try to rebuild their life not only have they had a kind of a very horrific incident in their life time in their life, they then are faced with financial debts, that they're really not responsible for the what this bill does, it helps survivors really move on with their lives and really forgives the debt, which is in Canada about, you know, between 20 and $25,000. So it's fairly significant.
Sue Hutchinson 13:02
So, what, what the bill actually does is it prohibits credit bureaus from reporting on any debts that are considered coerced,
Michael LeBlanc 13:10
Oh, I see.
Sue Hutchinson 13:11
Yeah, it prov-, prohibits the collection of these debts by, sort of, any collection agency, which could be a lender themselves, or sometimes these things are outsourced and then it also prohibits any financial institution of taking these debts into consideration when they're thinking about potentially future lending and then finally, it adds kind of a tribunal process. So, if, if survivors aren't satisfied in terms of, of outcomes, there is a way that these concerns can be raised in, in sort of a tribunal. So, we were just very, you know, interested in supporting obviously, it's very important, we already have the concept of a fraudulent debt, that that is forgiven and this was really just an important area that we wanted to support as well.
Michael LeBlanc 14:04
I guess it also indexes back to the cybercrime, because really, you know, you, I would imagine, there are cases that you might know of, or have heard of, where someone who's under duress, you know, is hired by an organization and winds up with some passwords and keys. So that becomes the inside job or whatever. Right. So that kind of happen as well, I imagine. Yeah.
Sue Hutchinson 14:28
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So there is the concept of, you know, fraudulent debt where, obviously with, you know, a sufficient, you know, validity, those, those would also be, be forgiven from a credit bureau perspective.
Michael LeBlanc 14:46
Okay and just one last question about that. How hard is it to validate that, you know, you put your hand up and you go, like, how do you get that debt that you have designated as you know, as for fraudulent debt is that a complicated process? I mean, not everyone has the means to lawyers and things like that, like, is that part of the process as well making it easy for the common person or even a, you know, a new Canadian, or someone who doesn't know the system to take advantage of this?
Sue Hutchinson 15:16
Well, new Canadians are probably protected, because they don't have any credit history in Canada, which is a problem actually, we're trying to solve as well, you know, with the use of alternative data. So we're looking at, you know, some of the credit scoring in this country that, you know, hasn't really been modernized, to a great extent over the past couple of decades. So, we're looking at, how do we incorporate more relevant data like rental and you know, telco data, which today doesn't help you build a credit score.
Sue Hutchinson 15:50
So if you, for example, pay $2,500 a month in rent for 10 years, or you pay $2,500, in a mortgage for 10 years, that mortgage helps you build your credit history and a credit score, those rental payments do not even though it is a you know, commitment to pay and shows capacity to pay and trustworthiness. So, so these are areas where, you know, as the largest bureau in Canada, we feel a responsibility to make sure we're continuing to modernize the information, which, which our lenders are using, and we actually are working with some of the big lenders in the country who are very interested in certainly supporting newcomers to Canada to Canada, because, you know, a big, big part of settling in so to speak, is really joining the financial ecosystem.
Michael LeBlanc 16:36
Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, that's what credit unions, were, the origin of that was credit unions, right, because communities would get together and bank with themselves and still play a pretty important role in that. You guys are very active in, in acquisition, as well, I hear you just purchased was a profile credit that broadens reach in the retails, is there a retail specific connection to that, can you talk about that?
Sue Hutchinson 16:59
Absolutely. Yeah, we purchased profile credit or credit profile, depending if you're speaking English or French, they are based in, in Montreal and it's, it's, it's part of the food industry. It's a food industry credit bureau, it's one of actually the largest industries in Canada and in terms of number of businesses. So, if you think no restaurants, corner stores, grocery special specialty stores, you know, the agri food business employs about just a little over 2 million people, and it's about 7% of Canada's GDP.
Sue Hutchinson 17:32
So a really important part of the Canadian economy and, you know, we decided this would be a great company, because they have really tremendous data, we do have a commercial bureau, meaning we have credit scores and information about businesses across this country and this will really add about information on about 1000 companies, food service, distributors, suppliers. So this is where we're really excited and, and, you know, it's sort of billions of dollars of trade information and really, the food industry is also going global and so it's a, it's a really large source of commercial credit information, and really helpful for those companies to be part of our, our data, as lenders really look to provide capital to some of these small and medium sized businesses.
Michael LeBlanc 18:31
So I guess in the context of, of, let's say, a grocer, who might be listening, and they've got a new prospective vendor, this would be helpful in sorting out if they're stable and dependable from a financial perspective before they do a lot of listing work and, and all that is that, uh, that one thing it could be used for?
Sue Hutchinson 18:48
Absolutely, yeah, that would be something we would, you know, we can provide analytics on how well, you know, companies are paying, whether they're high-risk accounts, whether they're, you know, profitable, you know, right down to we have, we can predict bankruptcy based on some of the behavioral trends of the company. So absolutely, it's a, it's a great source of data.
Michael LeBlanc 19:14
Let's shift gears a little bit. So, the economy goes up, down and sideways and retailers are telling me they're experiencing a little more risk in their consumer loan profiles and more fraudulent applications, kind of different types of fraud, but also look just a little bit of risk, right and, and as we look forward, and try to read the tea leaves, I think you guys would be pretty good readers of tea leaves when it comes to this kind of thing. So, what's the forecast from your perspective and your position in the, in the ecosystem for the Canadian economy and consumer spending for 2023, any, any advice or insight for the retailers listening?
Sue Hutchinson 19:50
Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, starting with the good news, I think we've seen more businesses open in the last few quarters, you know, than we have in the last, last few years, so a lot of optimistic in Canada and a lot of, you know, newcomers to, to kind of the retail and commercial sector in Canada. That's the good news.
Michael LeBlanc 20:11
Yeah.
Sue Hutchinson 20:12
I think the, you know, more concerning news is obviously, cost of goods are going up, and we'll see it certainly in, you know, food grocery. Some of the sectors, we're certainly seeing that cost of capital, of course, were, what are we four and a quarter basis points up just in 2022. So that's, that's really expensive, and has a really dramatic impact on, on both the businesses, but also the consumers that run those businesses. I think still some supply chain issues, depending on the segment, are really persisting, increase wages, although we're seeing a little bit, little bit of loosening of that and in certain areas, like, you know, technology jobs, but we're, you know, we're seeing full employment, right. So, jobs-
Michael LeBlanc 21:01
Isn't that a good thing, though, isn't that,
Sue Hutchinson 21:04
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 21:04
you know, when it comes to increase wages of hourly workers, I mean, Uber doesn't feel like we're at the point where that is, I mean, it's not a huge contributor to inflation, right, most, a lot of our inflation is imported into the country, with food price and of course, when you're, you know, when wages go up, people spend more money with retail in other sectors.
Sue Hutchinson 21:24
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 21:24
Right, there is a bit of an equation there that could kind of work, yeah.
Sue Hutchinson 21:26
Yeah, 100%, 100%, of course, our interest rates are local here in Canada, you can debate whether they were important or not, but that would be certainly an expense, both for pure, pure capital, but also just for regular spending on, you know, variable interest rate debt is, is a bit of an impact. So, we do see some softening, we benchmark, you know, kind of what's happening against sort of Oxford Economics. I just saw an update this morning. You know, Q3 there's probably a bit of a delay in terms of the softening, and I think probably the lowest growth here in Canada is expected in Q3. Now, that does not take into, the, to impact Silicon Valley Bank failure, and some of the associated downstream impacts of that, which I think we're just starting to see now, two weeks post that event. So I think there's a
Michael LeBlanc 22:24
Is there a big impact, but really is there big impact. I mean, the government is pretty quick to throw money at it. The, the US federal government, I mean, you know, a lot of people ate, I read some stats a lot more, a disproportionate amount of their deposits were larger than a quarter million dollars. So, they weren't covered but then the government just stepped in and said, 'You're covered.' and so how, you know, we were a little off topic, but I think it goes to the state of the economy. Really, when SVB, you know, gets into trouble. How much trouble is that really causing the economy to the average listener and you and me?
Sue Hutchinson 22:59
I think that's yet to be seen, Michael, I think we could say, 'oh, yeah, deposit holders were whole', but shareholders are not protected. I think this dramatic rise in rates is a bit of a problem on the balance sheets of many corporations and banks in particular. Right, so we've got a cost of capital problem where we're up kind of four or 5% and what does that mean, in the kind of medium term, and I think there will be some restructuring that will have to take place.
Sue Hutchinson 23:35
Companies have gone under, right. So, it's not just the, the depositors, they're whole, that's fine. People have lost their jobs, right and I think there'll be some downstream impact of that, as there always will be. So, we may see, you know, despite you can read one article, you know, over the weekend that says maybe interest rates are going to start coming down, but then you can look at the fallout SVB, bank failure and prediction of actually rates going up. So, so I think that hasn't really been digested so to speak, in the markets and the economy and I do think there will be some domino effects including here in Canada, right where we have, you know, there was a SVB Canada
Sue Hutchinson 24:25
which is now in the arms of OSFI, our regulator. Absolutely, yeah. Mostly in the technology sector, right. We have big banks that operate in the US, that won't be you know, protected from any fall out there, etc. So, my prediction is we haven't seen this whole thing unravel yet and I do think there'll be some impact.
Sue Hutchinson 24:25
They were lenders, right?
Michael LeBlanc 24:48
Yeah, okay. Interesting. All right. Well, let's, let's end with some advice and you've been given great advice all, all interview but let's, let's hone this in, in a format I like which is two starts and one stop. So, for the retail or retail insiders listening to the podcast, two things they should start doing or thinking about one thing they should think maybe differently about and, you know, maybe around consumer debt or consumer spending, just so we kind of bring this home, make it as relevant as, as we can great wide ranging discussion, but let's, let's hone that in and to start and one stop for the retailers listening.
Sue Hutchinson 25:22
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think we talked a bit about cybersecurity. I think it's, it's unfortunately, on the rise, and the bad guys seem to be winning. So, I think just really using good vendors, as we said, you know, some of your listeners won't have, you know, the, the level of investment, you know, required for very sophisticated systems, but what they can do certainly is use really reputable vendors that have, you know, good technology protect, to protect data. So, I think that's super important.
Sue Hutchinson 25:55
Being, obviously, creative, and innovative, and all that, but really protecting or, you know, using the forecast, which I think are saying probably we're in for a softer economy. So obviously continuing to be optimistic, but also with some caution around additional financing, and additional spending. So I would probably caution to watch that, I think, would be my other piece of advice.
Michael LeBlanc 26:23
You know, it's interesting, because I think what I see in the data, and some of the data is people spending less in retail, but booking flights and you know, getting back to normal, all that stuff they didn't do during the COVID era, you know, this, this swing of consumption that I think can actually distract people from what's going on in the economy. In other words, retail is off. Okay, but we bought our brains out during the COVID. Literally brought forward a year and a half, and I didn't need I don't need another TV, my TV works. So I'm going to Tahiti instead. You know, did you, do you see that in your data too, I mean, is that part of your advice is to kind of have that kind of holistic view of how consumers spend?
Sue Hutchinson 27:05
Yeah, I think we are seeing a lot of this accumulated disposable income is dropping so, so all of those savings that, you know, parts of the, parts of the economy and consumer segments have, so we didn't have to drive to work. We couldn't travel if we wanted to. We couldn't go to restaurants. So that accumulated disposable income is now probably almost back to pre-COVID levels, except for some of the very wealthy segments, though. So I think you're right, I think the, all the travel and spending is kind of the tail end of, of some of that accumulated income.
Sue Hutchinson 27:43
I do think we're seeing in the numbers that that is, as I say, closer to pre COVID levels. So, that will probably level off and I think there'll be some pressures. In terms of the economy softening. You know, we have variable rate mortgages in Canada with a, you know, we talk to our US colleagues about it's sort of an unusual product. And unfortunately, those that are renewing those this year are going to have this, you know, what's increasingly being called a payment shock, where they're going to be renewing at rates that are kind of 4 or 5, 6% higher, and that's real money for the average Canadian family.
Michael LeBlanc 28:20
Particularly, I think on the, on the, on the West Coast. I think the Lower Mainland Vancouver, they kind of live in their money a little bit. I mean, the cost of housing is pretty high. I mean, it's not widely distributed across the, across the nation. Well, listen, just a great wide-ranging conversation. If people want to learn more, get in touch with you, or, or find out more and dig deeper into some of these things. How do they get in touch?
Sue Hutchinson 28:43
Yeah, very happy to have folks visit our website. We have a lot of information, educational around what we do. We also have a lot of information for businesses. So welcome, folks to take a look at equifax.ca.
Michael LeBlanc 28:58
All right. Well, Sue, thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast, great discussion. Thanks for making the time to do some sitting and chatting and look forward to doing some more and let's see, maybe we'll get you back on to see who's or what forecast comes true, like you know, whose crystal balls are a little clearer than, than others, but thanks again for coming on.
Sue Hutchinson 29:17
Wonderful, love to. Thanks so much, Michael. Appreciate it.
Michael LeBlanc 29:21
Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure to follow on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically each week and be sure to check out my other retail industry media properties Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis and the Global E-commerce Leaders podcast. Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my YouTube barbecue show Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
Michael LeBlanc 29:45
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, consumer growth consultant, president of ME Leblanc and Company Inc, Maven media and Keynote speaker. If you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Michael LeBlanc 29:59
Safe travels everyone!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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