Surcharge Ban Looms for Australian Businesses

The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced plans to remove card processing surcharges for all designated networks from 1 October. This change will affect businesses that charge customers a fee when they pay using EFTPOS, Mastercard, or Visa.

Although businesses will still incur additional costs when accepting card payments, they won't be able to pass this cost along to the customer as a line item on the receipt. This means that practices like GP clinics will have to absorb these extra fees themselves.

Businesses can still increase overall fees, but only if they do not discriminate based on payment method. Introducing an extra 'handling' or 'service' fee specifically for card payments is also prohibited and could result in penalties.