Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has released its Conclusions Paper for the Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging. Below are the three key findings:

1. Surcharging on debit and credit cards should end from 1 October 2026.
You will not be able to apply surcharges to Visa, Mastercard, or eftpos debit, prepaid or credit card payments. A separate RBA review of American Express begins mid-2026   

2. Fees paid by businesses for card payments are too high.
Interchange fees charged to your business will be reduced, and fees on foreign card transactions will be subject to caps. This should help to lower card payment costs for your business.
Interchange fees are charges exchanged between banks for processing debit and credit card transactions. 

3. More transparency is needed over card payment fees.
Merchants to publish the fees they charge, which will help businesses check how their fees compare.
These measures are designed to create a simpler, fairer, and more competitive card payments system, supporting both business sustainability and consumer confidence.  

If you currently apply surcharges

• Review your invoice, correspondence templates and MyAccount and advise us of your changes by 1 September 2026. We will put your changes live on 1 October 2026.
• Decide whether to build your card acceptance costs into your overall pricing or absorb them as part of your service offering.

If you don't apply surcharges

If you do not currently add card surcharges, you are already aligned with these upcoming changes and do not need to take any immediate action. 

Your next steps

We suggest you contact your provider to understand your updated pricing structure. This will help you assess the impact on your business, ensure that any cost reductions are being passed through, and make informed decisions about your pricing going forward.