Proposed debit card surcharge 'crackdown' receives mixed reaction among customers, small business and big banks

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Card Surcharge News

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The federal government's threat to ban excessive debit card surcharges by 2026 has been welcomed by customers and small businesses who have been hit with higher costs for years — but not everyone is on board.

Wendy Armitage was expecting the "ouch factor" when she went to pay her bill at a car repair shop in Adelaide a fortnight ago.

"How that made such a radical difference to the surcharge, I'm not quite sure because … if I did it contactless, it was still going to be 16.5 per cent," she said."I saved myself quite a lot of money to dine out on." "Unfortunately, we'd have to change the menu and change the prices … so that would be hard for customers to spend money," he told The Business.The ban would take effect from January 2026, and would depend on a review of Australia's retail payments system being undertaken by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

"These issues are linked, since merchants would be less likely to surcharge consumers if card payment costs were lower."Australians are losing nearly a billion dollars a year in card surcharges, which could be substantially reduced when a system called least-cost routing is fully implemented. "We want consumers to get a benefit, we want small businesses to get a benefit, and we want banks and the system providers and the network providers to have a long, hard look at themselves about the charges that they're passing onto small businesses and consumers.The head of the Australian Banking Association, Anna Bligh, said the charges are costs that businesses have to fork out for.

Ms Bligh said she welcomed the RBA's review into the country's retail payments system, which would examine options to reduce transaction costs."We need to get an outcome that's fair for consumers, one that's fair for business and one that recognises you can't have a safe, fast, effective payments system without a cost somewhere in all of that.

 

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