Key Highlights

  • From 30 October 2026, card networks and large acquirers began publishing specified fee information.
  • This is the first of three transparency milestones in the RBA's retail payments reforms.
  • Lower interchange caps reduce one cost for acquirers, but pass-through to merchants depends on fees charged.
  • Merchants can use published fee information to compare providers.

For many small businesses, the cost of accepting card payments has long been difficult to pin down. Fees are layered, statements can be complex, and comparing one provider with another has not always been straightforward. The Reserve Bank of Australia's retail payments reforms aim to change that, and a key step took effect on 30 October 2026.

From that date, according to the RBA's card surcharges FAQ published on 14 September 2026, card networks and large acquirers started publishing specified card payment fee information. It is part of a staged set of transparency measures running into 2027, alongside lower interchange caps and the removal of card surcharges from 1 October 2026.

Who is publishing, and what that means

Two groups are covered by the 30 October requirement.

  • Card networks — the schemes that run the card systems, such as eftpos, Mastercard and Visa.
  • Large acquirers — the banks and payment providers that give businesses the ability to accept card payments and process the transactions.

The RBA's FAQ describes the information as specified card payment fee information. The FAQ material available does not list every item that must be published or the format it must take, so The broad point is that fee information which merchants previously had to piece together from individual statements or sales conversations is now being made public by the parties that set or pass on those fees.

Why fee visibility matters more after 1 October

The timing links closely to another change. From 1 October 2026, surcharges on card payments were removed under the card networks' no-surcharge rules. Governor Michele Bullock summarised the change in her opening statement to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on 28 October: "Card surcharging was removed from 1 October".

The removal covers eftpos (debit and prepaid), Mastercard and Visa (credit, debit and prepaid), American Express (credit) and UnionPay. American Express and UnionPay both withdrew from their undertakings to the RBA on 1 October 2026. PayPal's no-surcharge rule applies from 5 October 2026.

With surcharging off the table for covered cards, businesses can no longer pass card acceptance costs directly to the customers who pay by card at the point of sale. That makes the underlying fee a Business pays to accept cards a more prominent cost — and makes information about those fees more useful.

Fee transparency sits alongside a cut in one of the building blocks of card costs. Interchange fees are paid between the financial institutions involved in a card transaction and typically form part of the merchant service fee a business pays its acquirer. Under the reforms:

  • Lower interchange caps on domestic cards apply from 1 October 2026.
  • Caps on foreign-issued cards acquired in Australia apply from 1 April 2027.

Lower interchange caps reduce one cost for acquirers, but whether and how quickly those savings reach merchants depends on the fees acquirers charge. That is where the transparency timetable comes in. Published fee information gives businesses, and the wider market, a reference point against which later changes in merchant service fees can be measured, rather than relying only on what an individual provider reports.

Governor Bullock told the Senate committee on 28 October: "So far, several large providers have reduced their card processing fees for small businesses." She did not name the providers in the quoted remarks, and the extent of reductions across the market is not set out in the material available here.

The next two milestones

The 30 October publication is the first of three dates in the RBA's transparency timetable:

  • 30 October 2026: Networks and large acquirers start publishing specified card payment fee information.
  • 30 January 2027: Large acquirers publish how interchange reductions flowed through to merchant service fees.
  • 1 April 2027: All acquirers provide more detailed merchant statements.

The January milestone is designed to show how much of the 1 October interchange reduction large acquirers have passed on. The April 2027 step extends more detailed statements to all acquirers, not just the large ones, and coincides with the start of interchange caps on foreign-issued cards.

Taken together, the sequence moves from published fee information, to evidence on pass-through, to more detailed statements for individual merchants. Each step adds a different layer: what fees look like across the market, whether interchange cuts have flowed through, and what a particular business is being charged.

What is not changing, and the wider agenda

Some charges sit outside the Surcharge removal. According to the RBA's FAQ, the following are not covered:

  • weekend and public holiday surcharges
  • booking fees
  • service fees
  • payment service providers' fees for terminal rental or transaction processing.

That last item is a reminder that the fees a business pays its own provider for terminals and processing continue. The reforms aim to make those costs more visible and to lower interchange, not to abolish them.

There is also no general business exemption from the no-surcharge rules, including for not-for-profits, unless card network rules or a law or regulation provides one. Card networks decide exemptions, including for business-to-business card payments.

The fee transparency measures are one part of a broader modernisation agenda at the RBA. In its 27 August 2026 update, the Payments System Board welcomed the account-to-account (A2A) Payments Vision and discussed the A2A Payments Roadmap, including the future of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System. The Board said that "If the industry is unable to make coordinated progress on modernising A2A payments", it encourages the RBA to consider further action.

The bottom line

Since 30 October 2026, card networks and large acquirers have been publishing specified card payment fee information, giving businesses more visibility over the cost of accepting cards just weeks after surcharges were removed. Two further milestones follow: on 30 January 2027, large acquirers publish how interchange reductions flowed through to merchant service fees, and from 1 April 2027 all acquirers provide more detailed merchant statements. Together, these steps are designed to show whether lower interchange is reaching the businesses that accept cards.