RBA Announces Changes to Credit Card Fees Regime

By James Glynn

SYDNEY--The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced changes to way fees are charged on credit and debit card purchases, lowering costs for business and consumers by around A$1.8 billion.

The changes, that will mostly come into effect in October, remove surcharging on debit, prepaid and credit cards on designated Mastercard and Visa card networks, the RBA said in a statement.

"The surcharging framework, introduced more than two decades ago, is no longer achieving its intended purpose of steering consumers towards making more efficient payment choices," the central bank said.

Removing surcharging would make card payments simpler, more transparent and increase competition among payment service providers, the RBA said.

The RBA plans to start a public consultation in mid-2026 to assess the public interest case for regulating areas of the retail payments system that weren't covered under the review of surcharging, including mobile wallets, three-party card networks, buy-now, pay-later services and e-commerce platforms.

Write to James Glynn at james.glynn@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 30, 2026 19:52 ET (23:52 GMT)