Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released the Conclusions Paper for the Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging. There are three key findings from the Review to support a more efficient and competitive payments system.

The RBA's Conclusions
Surcharging on debit and credit cards should end from 1 October 2026 as it is no longer achieving its intended purpose. Previously, surcharging encouraged consumers to use cheaper payment methods. However, it has become harder for consumers to avoid surcharges. Consumers and businesses find surcharging rules complex and confusing, and surcharges are often not well disclosed.

Fees paid by businesses for card payments are too high. The RBA are lowering the maximum interchange fees that businesses pay for debit and consumer credit card payments. The RBA are also introducing a cap on interchange fees for foreign card payments. This should help to reduce card payment costs, especially for small businesses.
More transparency is needed over card payment fees, EFTPOS, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers will have to publish the fees they charge, which will help businesses check how their fees compare. Businesses will get standardised information on their statements, which can help them to get accurate quotes from different providers.

Next steps
Most of the changes will come into effect on 1 October 2026, including the removal of surcharging and reductions in the interchange caps for domestic card transactions. The introduction of an interchange cap on foreign cards and some changes to payment cost transparency will come into effect later, on 1 April 2027, to ensure the payments industry has sufficient time to implement these more complex changes.