Key Highlights

  • The Payments System Board meets on 19 November 2026.
  • Surcharging on debit and Credit cards ended from 1 October 2026.
  • A cap on foreign-issued card interchange and some transparency changes begin on 1 April 2027.
  • eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers must publish the fees they charge.

With surcharging on debit and credit cards removed from 1 October and further card changes scheduled for April 2027, the Reserve Bank's Payments System Board gathers on 19 November with a crowded set of issues in view.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is often discussed as if it had only one job: setting the cash rate. Its website calendar tells a fuller story. Its remit covers the way money moves when a card is tapped or a bill is paid.

The meeting arrives at an unusual moment. The RBA's review of retail payments regulation, whose findings were published on 31 March 2026, set out a sequence of changes. Most of those changes have already taken effect, and others are still to come. That leaves the board meeting in the middle of an implementation period rather than at its start or its end.

The RBA calendar records the date of the meeting, not its agenda. Instead, it sets out the published policy settings that frame the conversation, and the open questions that merchants, consumers and the wider payments industry are likely to be watching.

Where the reforms stand today

The core decision from the review was stated plainly in its findings: "Surcharging on debit and credit cards should end from 1 October 2026." That date has now passed. The findings also explained that "Most of the changes will come into effect on 1 October 2026, including the removal of surcharging and reductions in the interchange caps for domestic card transactions."

Two strands of the reform therefore went live together. The first was the end of card surcharges, the extra amount some businesses added at checkout when a customer paid by card. The second was a reduction in the caps on interchange fees for domestic card transactions. Interchange is a fee that sits inside the card payment chain and is generally paid between the institutions involved in processing a transaction, rather than being shown to the shopper directly.

Not everything arrived in October. According to the findings, a cap on interchange for foreign-issued cards and some transparency changes come into effect "later, on 1 April 2027". In addition, the review requires eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers to publish the fees they charge.

The RBA's consultation work also gave the board a clear reading of public sentiment. Its survey found that 76 per cent of consumers want surcharging to stop. That figure helps explain why the surcharging change drew such attention, but it does not by itself answer how the transition is playing out in practice.

Five questions observers will be asking

Because the board meets roughly seven weeks after the October changes took effect, the meeting is one of the first natural checkpoints since the switch. Several questions are worth keeping in mind, not as statements about the board's agenda.

  • How has the end of surcharging bedded down? The rule change applies from 1 October 2026. Observers will be interested in whether any further guidance or communication emerges about how businesses and consumers have adjusted.
  • What has the lower domestic interchange cap meant for card acceptance costs? The reduction in domestic interchange caps was designed to work alongside the removal of surcharging. How that combination is experienced by businesses is a natural point of interest.
  • Is the April 2027 timetable on track? The interchange cap for foreign-issued cards and some transparency changes are scheduled for 1 April 2027. Anyone affected will want to know whether preparations are proceeding to that date.
  • How will fee publication work? The requirement for eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers to publish their fees is intended to make pricing easier to see. The format and usefulness of those disclosures are open questions.

Why a payments board matters to households

For many people, the Payments System Board sits in the background. The Monetary Policy Board, which raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.85 per cent on 3 November, gets the headlines. Yet the payments side can affect the price of an everyday purchase just as directly, if in smaller increments.

Before 1 October, a shopper paying by card might have been charged a Surcharge at some businesses and not at others. The review's view that surcharging "should end" was a response to that patchwork, and the 76 per cent survey result shows how firmly many consumers felt about it. Whether the change ultimately shows up in shelf prices, in Business margins or elsewhere is the kind of question that takes time to answer, and no single meeting is likely to settle it.

The wider payments calendar

The board's meeting is one entry in a busy stretch for the RBA's payments and infrastructure work. On 6 November, the RBA designated Prosegur Australia Pty Ltd under the Cash Distribution Framework Act 2026, following the designation of Linfox Armaguard Pty Limited on 3 September. In September, it published its 2025/26 assessment of the ASX clearing and settlement facilities, noting that "Cyber resilience will remain a supervisory priority".

These developments are distinct from the retail payments review, and it would be wrong to assume they will feature at the 19 November meeting. They do, however, show the range of the RBA's responsibilities beyond interest rates, from the cards in a wallet to the cash in an ATM and the systems that settle share trades.

The bottom line

The 19 November Payments System Board meeting falls at a midpoint. The removal of surcharging on debit and credit cards and lower domestic interchange caps took effect on 1 October 2026. A cap on interchange for foreign-issued cards and some transparency changes are due on 1 April 2027, and the major card schemes and large acquirers must publish their fees.