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Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay accounted for around 45 per cent of all card payments by the end of 2025, and the Reserve Bank's Review of Payments System Regulation is examining what that shift means for competition and access.

Tapping a phone or smartwatch at the checkout has gone from novelty to habit for many Australians. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has now put a number on just how far that habit has spread.

According to the RBA's issues paper on mobile payments, non-designated card networks and buy now, pay later (BNPL), "Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay transactions collectively accounted for around 45 per cent of all card payments". That share is measured by number of transactions, as at the end of 2025. Put another way, close to one in every two card transactions in Australia was being made through one of those three wallets, rather than by inserting, swiping or tapping a physical card.

When almost half of all card payments pass through a handful of digital wallets, the arrangements behind those wallets start to matter for the whole payments system. That is one reason mobile wallets are among the issues the RBA is examining in its wide-ranging Review of Payments System Regulation.

A review with a broad remit

The RBA launched the Review of Payments System Regulation on 25 June 2026, and submissions closed on 7 August 2026. Its scope is broad, covering:

  • merchant choice
  • account-to-account payments
  • mobile wallets
  • non-designated card networks and BNPL
  • cryptography and fraud.

The timetable stretches into next year. The RBA intends to publish its regulatory priorities by the end of 2026, with further consultation on the prioritised issues by mid-2027.

A near-term milestone is imminent. According to the RBA's Coming Up calendar, the Summary of Submissions to the Issues Paper is due on Tuesday 6 October 2026 at 11.30 am AEDT. That document may give a sense of what industry participants and other stakeholders told the RBA, including on mobile wallets.

The access question

The RBA's interest in mobile wallets is not only about their popularity. It also centres on how wallets connect to the hardware in phones.

Contactless payments rely on near-field communication (NFC) technology. In its issues paper, the RBA observed: "Not all operating systems allow fee-free direct access to NFC technology on terms equivalent to native mobile wallets."

Put simply, the wallet built into a phone's operating system may have access to the payment chip on terms that are not equally available to other providers who might want to offer a competing wallet. With the three named wallets carrying around 45 per cent of card payments, the terms of access to that technology have implications for competition.

The issue raises several questions that the Review is positioned to consider:

  • who sets the terms on which a wallet can reach a phone's NFC technology
  • whether those terms differ between native wallets and other providers
  • how any differences might affect competition among wallets.

The RBA has not, in the material covered here, announced any decision or proposed rule on this issue. It has identified it as part of the Review's scope, and its regulatory priorities are due by the end of 2026.

How wallets fit with the card reforms

The rise of mobile wallets sits alongside major changes to card payments that took effect on 1 October 2026. From that date, card surcharges were removed on the designated networks eftpos, Mastercard and Visa, covering debit, credit and prepaid cards. American Express "has also decided to remove surcharging from 1 October 2026".

Interchange caps were also lowered on 1 October. The consumer credit cap fell from 0.8 per cent to 0.3 per cent, and the debit and prepaid cap was cut from 10 cents or 0.2 per cent to 8 cents or 0.16 per cent. The commercial credit cap stays at 0.8 per cent.

Because mobile wallets are a way of presenting a card, the volume of card payments made through them means the way wallets operate is closely linked to the card system the RBA regulates. The Review is looking at the layers around those card payments, including the wallets themselves.

Other corners of the Review

The same issues paper covers two other areas that bear on competition at the checkout.

On non-designated card networks, the RBA noted: "American Express charges merchant fees that are, on average, higher than Visa and Mastercard credit cards."

On BNPL, the paper said: "The BNPL sector has grown rapidly in recent years, with transactions more than doubling in the past five years." BNPL accounted for about 2 per cent of retail payments in 2025, and "BNPL providers typically do not publish the fees that they charge merchants".

The Review is also considering alternatives to card payments altogether. In its account-to-account paper, the RBA said: "Greater adoption of A2A payments in in-person and online retail settings could enhance competition with card payments." The New Payments Platform handled about 37 per cent of account-to-account payment volumes in 2026, compared with about 63 per cent for the older Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS).

The Payments System Board has signalled it is willing to push for progress on that front. At its August 2026 meeting, the Board welcomed the A2A Payments Vision and said: "If the industry is unable to make coordinated progress on modernising A2A payments, the Board encourages the RBA to consider further action."

The bottom line

With Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay accounting for around 45 per cent of all card payments by number at the end of 2025, mobile wallets have become a central part of how Australians pay. The RBA's Review of Payments System Regulation is examining them, with particular attention to whether NFC access is available on equivalent terms to competing wallets. No decision has been announced. What to watch: the Summary of Submissions on 6 October, Head of Payments Policy Ellis Connolly's fireside chat at the AFIA conference on 20 October, the Payments System Board meeting on 19 November, and the RBA's regulatory priorities by the end of 2026.