Key Highlights

  • Stakeholders responding to the June Issues Paper raised mobile wallets, three-party card schemes, account-to-account payments and agentic commerce.
  • The RBA intends to release its regulatory priorities by the end of 2026.
  • Further consultation on prioritised issues is planned by mid-2027.

With card surcharging now gone, the Reserve Bank is turning to a broader review of how payments are regulated, and the issues raised so far range from phone wallets to AI agents that shop on a person's behalf.

Tap a phone at a checkout, send money directly from one bank account to another, or let a piece of software complete a purchase without a human pressing "pay". Each of these is becoming part of how Australians move money, and each raises questions about whether the rules written for an earlier era still fit.

Those questions are now formally on the Reserve Bank of Australia's desk. In her opening statement to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on 28 October 2026, Governor Michele Bullock outlined where the RBA's Review of Payments System Regulation has reached, and which topics stakeholders have pushed to the top of the list.

From surcharging to a wider lens

The RBA's most visible recent payments decision concerned card surcharging. The Payments System Board concluded that removing card surcharging, reducing interchange fee caps and improving transparency was in the public interest, and, in the Governor's words to the Senate, "Card surcharging was removed from 1 October".

That package addressed a specific problem in card payments. The Review of Payments System Regulation is different in scope. Rather than focusing on one fee or one type of card, it asks how the overall regulatory framework should work as payment methods multiply and change.

The review began with an Issues Paper released in June 2026. Stakeholders responded, and their submissions have been published. According to the Governor's statement, those submissions raised four themes in particular:

  • mobile wallets
  • three-party card schemes
  • account-to-account payments
  • agentic commerce

None of these has yet been the subject of an RBA decision. The Governor told the committee: "We intend to release regulatory priorities by the end of 2026". Further consultation on the issues that are prioritised is expected by mid-2027.

Four issues on the table

Mobile wallets. A mobile wallet is the software on a phone or watch that stores a digital version of a payment card and lets the user tap to pay. For many shoppers it has become the default way of paying in store.

From a regulatory perspective, the interest lies in the fact that a wallet sits between the cardholder, the card scheme and the merchant. That raises general questions about who sets the terms for access to the technology, how costs are passed along, and whether competition operates effectively in that layer. Stakeholders evidently consider these questions important enough to raise in their submissions. The RBA has not yet said what, if anything, it will do about them.

Three-party card schemes. Many card networks operate as four-party schemes, in which the bank that issues the card and the provider that processes payments for the merchant are separate entities. A three-party scheme works differently: the scheme itself typically deals directly with both the cardholder and the merchant.

Because the structure differs, rules designed for four-party schemes may not apply in the same way. The fact that three-party schemes were raised in submissions suggests stakeholders want the RBA to consider whether they should be treated consistently with other card networks. Again, that is a question the RBA has listed as raised, not one it has answered.

Account-to-account payments. Account-to-account payments move money directly between bank accounts rather than through a card network. They can be used between individuals, and increasingly for paying businesses as well.

For a payments regulator, these methods are interesting because they offer a potential alternative to cards. If they grow, they could change the competitive landscape that card regulation has been built around. Issues such as how such payments are accessed, how they are priced and how consumers are protected are the kinds of matters that can arise when an alternative payment channel becomes more widely used.

Agentic commerce. The newest item on the list is agentic commerce. The term refers broadly to purchases initiated or completed by software agents, including AI tools, acting on a person's behalf. Instead of a shopper selecting a product and confirming payment, an agent might search, compare and pay within limits the user has set.

This is an emerging area, and it is notable that stakeholders raised it in a review of payments regulation. It touches on questions such as how payments are authorised when a human is not directly involved at the moment of purchase, and who bears responsibility when something goes wrong. The RBA's inclusion of agentic commerce in its summary of submissions signals that it is aware of the issue, though it has not set out a position.

Technology is a recurring theme in the Governor's recent remarks. At a University of New England graduation ceremony on 23 October 2026, she spoke about qualities such as judgement, integrity, adaptability and collaboration, saying: "Those are qualities that technology can support, but not replace." That was a speech to graduates rather than a statement of payments policy, but it shows the subject is on her mind.

How the agenda fits with other work

The payments review is running alongside other RBA projects on the future of money. The Governor told the Senate that the Project Acacia Final Report, released in May, found tokenisation has potential to improve wholesale market efficiency, and that the RBA is consulting on how its settlement services could support tokenised asset markets and tokenised private money.

There is also unfinished business from the surcharging reforms. A foreign card interchange cap and some transparency changes take effect from 1 April 2027, including requirements for eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers to publish the fees they charge.

According to the RBA calendar, the Payments System Board meets on 19 November 2026 and on 24 February 2027.

The bottom line

The RBA's next payments agenda is not yet set, but its outline is visible. Stakeholders responding to the June Issues Paper flagged mobile wallets, three-party card schemes, account-to-account payments and agentic commerce as issues worth examining. The RBA has said it intends to release its regulatory priorities by the end of 2026, with further consultation on those priorities by mid-2027.

For consumers and businesses, the practical point is that the review is at an early stage. Nothing has been decided on any of these four topics, and the priorities statement due by year's end will be the first indication of which ones the RBA chooses to pursue.