Card surcharges ended on 1 October. This week the Reserve Bank’s payments policy chief gave his first public account of what the bank is watching now that they have.
Ellis Connolly, who runs the RBA’s Payments Policy Department, spoke at the Australian Finance Industry Association conference in Sydney on 20 October. He named three priorities: price transparency for consumers, lower payment costs for merchants, and fee disclosure so businesses can compare providers.
What the RBA wants shoppers to see
For consumers, Mr Connolly described the goal simply. “We want to get to a world where the price that consumers see advertised is the price they’ll end up paying when they tap their phone or they tap their card,” he said.
He said cards are now the most common way Australians pay — 75 per cent of payments, according to the bank’s consumer payments survey. That puts the change at the EFTPOS machine in front of most shoppers several times a week.
What’s changing for businesses
For merchants, the bank’s main lever is interchange — the fee that moves from a merchant’s payment provider to the bank that issued the card. Lower caps on domestic card transactions began on 1 October. Caps on foreign-issued cards follow on 1 April 2027.
Mr Connolly said the bank is watching whether those cuts reach merchant statements. “What we’re looking for there is pass-through of those reductions in interchange to the merchant service fees that small businesses are having to pay,” he said. Large acquirers must publish how those reductions flowed through from 30 January 2027.
The third plank is disclosure. Designated card networks and large acquirers start publishing specified fee data on 30 October, so merchants can work out “are they getting a reasonable deal from their payment service provider, or is it time to look around for a better deal?”
The industry’s counterpoint
AFIA chief executive Diane Tate, who moderated the session, put the industry case: costs should come down, but there is also “a need to incentivise investment in payments because if we disincentivise, then we’ll end up with a non-world-class Australian payment system”.
Mr Connolly’s answer: “We need to strike a balance there. End users want and need their payments to be affordable. At the same time, we need incentives for payment service providers to invest in safety and innovation.”
What it means for you
At the till, the surcharge line should be gone. Prices can still rise for other reasons, and businesses can still discount for cash. A price display that misleads is a different matter, and false or misleading price displays can be reported to the ACCC. Surcharging on taxi fares is still governed by state and territory rules.
Dates to note: 30 October for the first fee data, 30 January 2027 for pass-through reporting, and 1 April 2027 for foreign-issued cards and fuller merchant statements. Whether diners pay less is not yet measured.
Happy dining! G