DATE:	February 28, 2000	
TO:	Senior Financial Officers (SFOs) and Senior Full-Time Financial Officers (SFFOs)	
SUBJECT:	Amex Rebate distribution	

Further to my letter dated November 22, 1999, we have now been informed that a total rebate of $3,375,409 is available for distribution to departments and agencies that are using Amex credit cards for travel purposes.	
The contract stipulates that the rebate will be calculated on the basis of the government wide dollar volumes and client held days (CHD). The dollar volume includes all transactions processed through Departmental Travel Accounts (DTAs), Individual Travel cards (ITCs) and Responsibility Centre Travel Cards (RCTCs), excluding cash advances, fees, delinquency assessments, interest and travellers cheques. The CHD represents the overall average number of days that departments and agencies took to pay the monthly invoices to Amex.	
We had to reach a dollar volume level and pay invoices in a timely fashion in order to maximise the potential rebates. The dollar volume was not reached in 1998 and therefore no rebate was applicable for the first year of the contract. In 1999, the necessary dollar level was attained and the CHD was calculated as 33 days, which is within the required 40 days to generate a rebate.	
The contract also stipulates that the rebate would be remitted to “The Crown” i.e. Treasury Board Secretariat as Project Authority. Under that scenario, we would have had to recalculate the applicable rebate by department and agency and distribute the funds to each entity. We have instead prepared a distribution schedule based on the actual volume for each entity and, the payment pattern observed by each organisation.	
The attached schedule illustrates the distribution methodology that we have developed to arrive at the final amounts to be remitted to each department and/or agency as applicable. Departments and Agencies that have failed to pay the supplier within 40 days of the date of the invoices have negatively affected the CHD average and will therefore not be entitled to any portion of the rebate.	
Your department will shortly be receiving a cheque directly from Amex. You will appreciate that we could not divide the amounts among each individual responsibility centre of each department or agency. We have therefore chosen to send these cheques, payable to the Receiver General for Canada, to the Senior Full-Time Financial Officer of each organisation. The amount involved can be redistributed as deemed appropriate within each entity. To the extent that these funds are not spent within the current fiscal year, the funding will lapse.	
If you have any question on the above please contact Robert Berniquez at 
957-9672 or by Email at the following address: Berniquez.Robert@tbs-sct.gc.ca.	

Richard J. Neville
Deputy Comptroller General

Attachment						p.j.