Key Highlights

  • eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers must publish the fees they charge.
  • The RBA's findings do not specify the exact format or level of detail of the published fees.
  • Fee publication complements the end of surcharging from 1 October 2026.
  • The Payments System Board meets on 19 November 2026.

Among the Reserve Bank's retail payments reforms is a requirement that the major card networks and large acquirers publish the fees they charge, a change aimed at helping businesses see what they pay.

Ask a small Business owner what it costs to accept a card payment and the answer is often a shrug. The charge arrives as a line on a monthly statement, sometimes bundled, sometimes split into components with unfamiliar names. Comparing one provider with another can feel like comparing two phone plans written in different languages.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) addressed this in its review of retail payments regulation. Its findings, published on 31 March 2026, require eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers to publish the fees they charge. It is a less dramatic change than the end of surcharging, but for merchants it may prove just as practical.

Who has to publish

The requirement covers two groups. The first is the card networks: eftpos, Mastercard and Visa. These are the systems that link a cardholder's bank to a business's payment provider and set many of the rules for how card transactions work. The second is large acquirers, the institutions that provide businesses with the ability to accept card payments and settle the funds into their accounts.

Together, these participants sit at the points in the payment chain where much of a merchant's cost originates. Requiring them to publish their fees means that information previously spread across contracts and statements is to be made visible.

Those practical details will shape how useful the disclosures turn out to be.

Why visibility matters

There are three broad reasons fee publication can matter to a merchant.

  • Comparison. When fees are published, a business can look at what different providers charge before choosing one, rather than relying only on the quote it is offered.
  • Understanding. Card acceptance costs are built from several components. Seeing those components laid out can help a business understand why its total bill looks the way it does.
  • Negotiation. A business that knows what is published has a reference point when it discusses terms with its provider.

None of this guarantees lower costs. Disclosure is a tool, not a price control. Its value depends on whether businesses use it and whether the information is presented in a form that can be compared readily.

How disclosure fits with the end of surcharging

Fee publication takes on extra significance in light of the review's main decision. The findings stated: "Surcharging on debit and Credit cards should end from 1 October 2026." The findings also noted 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."

Before October, a business facing high card acceptance costs could, in some circumstances, pass part of them to customers through a surcharge. With that avenue gone, the cost of accepting cards is absorbed into the business's overall pricing and margins. That makes it more important for the business to understand exactly what it is paying, and to be able to compare it.

The RBA's consultation pointed to encouraging consumer support for the surcharging change. Its survey found that 76 per cent of consumers want surcharging to stop. Fee publication can be seen as the merchant-facing counterpart to that consumer-facing reform: shoppers no longer see surcharges at the till, while businesses gain more visibility over the costs that sit behind each payment.

The lower domestic interchange caps form part of the same package. Interchange is a fee passed between the institutions involved in a card payment and is one component of the cost a business ultimately pays. Lower caps and greater disclosure work in the same direction, towards a system where costs are both constrained and easier to see.

The RBA's findings split the timetable. Most of the changes started on 1 October 2026. A cap on interchange for foreign-issued cards and some transparency changes come into effect "later, on 1 April 2027".

The RBA's Payments System Board is scheduled to meet on 19 November 2026, according to the RBA calendar.

For businesses, the practical steps are mostly about awareness. Knowing that the networks and large acquirers must publish their fees, and knowing where to find that information once it is available, puts a business in a better position to understand its own costs.

A wider trend towards transparency

Disclosure is a recurring theme across the RBA's recent work. In its 2025/26 assessment of the ASX clearing and settlement facilities, the RBA set out ratings for each Facility and noted that "Cyber resilience will remain a supervisory priority". In cash distribution, the RBA's designation of Prosegur Australia on 6 November 2026 made it a regulated entity "subject to the obligations and requirements designed to support a sustainable, resilient and efficient cash distribution system in Australia".

These are separate regimes with separate goals. Still, they share a common thread with fee publication: making the workings of payment and market infrastructure clearer to the people who rely on it. In retail payments, the people relying on it most directly are the businesses that accept cards every day and the customers who pay with them.

The bottom line

The requirement for eftpos, Mastercard, Visa and large acquirers to publish the fees they charge is one of the quieter parts of the RBA's retail payments reforms. Its significance grows alongside the end of surcharging on debit and credit cards from 1 October 2026, because businesses can no longer add a card Surcharge at checkout and so have a firmer interest in understanding what card acceptance costs them. Disclosure does not set prices, but it can give merchants a clearer basis for comparison. How useful it proves will depend on the detail of what is published and how businesses put it to work.