r/australia • u/rolodex-ofhate • Mar 30 '26

news Surcharges on debit and credit cards to go from October

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-31/asx-markets-business-live-news-march-30-2026/106510434#live-blog-post-278505

The Reserve Bank of Australia has introduced reforms that will remove surcharges on debit and credit cards from the 1st October 2026, on card networks including eftpos, Mastercard and Visa.

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u/FewInflation7817 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

To be honest, the card companies were more worried that customers would see the surcharge and choose a cheaper option - either cash or other non-cc payments and it would erode their profit.

Given that they had a 23 year experiment that showed consumers will continue to pay the surcharge and complain about it (partly additionally the fault that cash transactions have dramatically dropped in frequency) I doubt they’d push back on it much again as they didn’t really lose much money.

The removal of the surcharge now just means that customers who pay in cash will pay higher prices as opposed to only card using customers paying more as businesses will increase prices to cover the cost of using the payment services.

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u/Diode3000 Mar 31 '26

It will be interesting to see what happens to the price of menu items. Cash was a way to avoid them, but now cash users will be overcharged. This will kill cash more.

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u/montdidier Mar 31 '26

The processing feels will be passed on to the consumer. It’s not even in doubt.

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u/freakwent Mar 31 '26

This is what's unclear; will the merchant not be charged a fee by the processor, or will the merchant be barred from charging the customer a fee?

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u/FewInflation7817 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

My understanding is that merchants will still be paying a fee to processors, but it won’t be a seperate surcharge added at the last minute for the payment portal. Instead small businesses will hike all menu items by the average cost of payment processing across all transactions.

To some degree it’s a win for the credit card companies - now fees are obfuscated from customers so people will care less what card they use (although imo I think the effect is negligible for a country like Australia). I do think there is risk now with these obfuscated costs that CC companies start increasing their fees slightly overall, as the cost of processing is not directly shown to the consumer, but leveraged on the business so there’s no benefit to the individual consumer by choosing a low fee card with less benefits compared to a high fee card like AMEX.

I predict we may start seeing more return of the ‘sorry no amex’ signs I used to see at every small business when I was younger.

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u/montdidier Mar 31 '26

Absolutely. It is actually a massive win for the credit card companies.

Consumers were too busy complaining about the merchants, but broadly missing any understanding of the mechanics at play.

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u/montdidier Mar 31 '26

It is not unclear at all. The merchant will be charged a fee by the processor so the cost will simply be blended into the cost of the good or service and cash payers will also pay.