The Reserve Bank of Australia lifted its prohibition on no-surcharge rules for designated debit, prepaid and credit cards on 1 October 2026. The change removes surcharging on the designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa card networks. Lower interchange caps on domestic card transactions acquired in Australia applied from the same date.
The Payments System Board cut the cap on domestic-issued consumer credit card interchange to 0.3 per cent of transaction value. It retained the cap on domestic-issued commercial credit card transactions acquired in Australia at 0.8 per cent of transaction value. The Board removed the weighted-average benchmarks that previously sat alongside the credit card caps, leaving a cap-only framework under which the RBA judges it likely, as seen in other jurisdictions, that interchange fee schedules will become simpler and require less frequent revision than under the benchmark.
The second tranche falls due on 1 April 2027. Interchange fees on foreign-issued card transactions acquired in Australia will be capped at 1.0 per cent of transaction value from that date. Acquirers must include the additional merchant statement information, including a breakdown of domestic-issued against foreign-issued cards and of card-present against card-not-present transactions, from the first full statement period that commences on or after 1 April 2027.