RBA Payments System Board June 2026: What Australian PSPs Must Act On

ByOfficer

Last updated: June 2026

An Australian acquirer that keeps surcharging logic running past 30 September 2026 will be applying fees the rules no longer permit. A designated card network or large acquirer that misses the new publication dates will be out of step with the RBA Standards registered on the Federal Register of Legislation. The June 2026 RBA Payments System Board meeting did not invent these obligations.

The Reserve Bank of Australia held its Payments System Board meeting on 4 June 2026. The substance was settled in March, when the Board published the Conclusions Paper for its Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging. The June meeting confirmed that the amended card payment Standards were registered on the Federal Register of Legislation on 14 April 2026, and set out the forward agenda.

Related reading: SEPA Instant Payments Regulation

What the June 2026 RBA Payments System Board meeting decided

The Board confirmed the amended Standards giving effect to the surcharging and interchange conclusions were registered on 14 April 2026, and recorded that the RBA would not prevent non-designated payment systems from introducing their own no-surcharge rules. It also set the near-term agenda covered below: a payments system regulation consultation, system-wide cryptographic resilience work, an approved assessment of the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS) against the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures, and a retail central bank digital currency assessment due in 2026/27.

Surcharging ends on designated networks from 1 October 2026

The central decision is that surcharging on debit, prepaid and credit cards across the designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks ends on 1 October 2026. The mechanism is the RBA lifting its prohibition on no-surcharge rules for those networks, which lets the schemes ban a card-acceptance fee at the till. The RBA’s figures show around 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges on designated network cards in 2024/25, an estimated 1.6 billion dollars of it paid by consumers.

This is where teams overstate the change. The removal is scoped to the three designated networks. The Board did not settle American Express in this round; appropriate settings for it would be considered in the next review, planned for mid-2026 under the broader scope of the amended payments legislation. A flat claim that all card surcharging is banned from 1 October 2026 is wrong for non-designated networks, and merchant communications and terminal configuration both need to carry that distinction.

Lower interchange caps, and a new cap on foreign cards

Surcharging removal takes consumer-side fees off the table, so the Board paired it with lower wholesale costs. On the RBA’s interchange settings, the domestic debit and prepaid cap falls to 8 cents, or 0.16 per cent ad valorem, down from 10 cents or 0.2 per cent. The domestic consumer credit cap falls to 0.3 per cent of transaction value, down from 0.8 per cent. The domestic commercial credit cap is retained at 0.8 per cent. Foreign-issued cards acquired in Australia will carry a cap of 1.0 per cent across debit, prepaid and credit. The RBA estimates the combined effect lowers wholesale card costs for merchants by around 910 million dollars a year, with small businesses gaining most because they pay fees closest to the existing caps.

The trap is timing. The domestic-issued caps take effect on 1 October 2026, the same day surcharging ends. The cap on foreign-issued cards does not. It commences on 1 April 2027. A pricing or reconciliation model that assumes a single go-live date for every interchange change will misstate the cost base for cross-border acceptance through the whole first half of 2027.

Fee transparency: what acquirers and card networks must publish

The third leg is disclosure, so competition in the acquiring chain does some of the work. Card networks must publish quarterly aggregate interchange and scheme fees, broken down by card type and form factor. Large acquirers must publish quarterly merchant service fees if they have processed more than 10 billion dollars in eftpos, Mastercard and Visa card transactions directly on behalf of merchants for the designated networks in the previous 12 months, excluding transactions processed indirectly through unrelated payment facilitators and excluding self-acquired transactions. The date I would put at the top of a build plan is not 1 October 2026. It is 30 October 2026, the first publication deadline, covering 1 July to 30 September 2026, so the data starts accruing three months before the caps change.

Large acquirers must also publish an interchange pass-through measure for four reporting periods from 1 October 2026, with the first due by 30 January 2027 for the period 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026. Scheme Fee Roadmaps are expected by 1 April 2027. Merchant statement changes take effect on 1 October 2026, but transitional relief means compliance with the new statement requirements is only required for statements covering the first full month after 1 April 2027.

When scoping a transparency obligation, the first question is whether the ledger already produces the breakdown the rule asks for. Here acquirers must split merchant statements by domestic-issued versus foreign-issued cards, and by card-present versus card-not-present, and many acquiring ledgers do not store those splits cleanly. The publication duty applies only to large acquirers, so smaller acquirers stay out of the quarterly publication regime even though the caps apply to everyone.

Least-cost routing: expectations held, online and mobile deferred

Least-cost routing lets a merchant send a dual-network debit transaction down the cheaper network. For in-person, device-present transactions, the PSB concluded it is in the public interest to maintain the existing approach, which runs on published expectations rather than a mandate: acquirers are expected to keep offering and promoting least-cost routing, and large acquirers and payment facilitators report to the RBA on availability and merchant take-up every six months. As of December 2025, 84 per cent of merchants had it enabled for in-person transactions. The Board reiterated its expectation that large debit card issuers, those above 1 per cent of total debit transaction value, continue issuing dual-network debit cards and provision both networks across all form factors.

What the Board did not do is mandate least-cost routing as a default for online or mobile-wallet transactions. Those were deferred to a consultation expected in mid-2026. A roadmap that treats online least-cost routing as a settled 2026 requirement is reading a future consultation as a present obligation.

The Review of Payments System Regulation and what comes next

The amended Payment Systems (Regulation) Act gives the RBA a broader perimeter, and the Board is moving to use it. The consultation due by the end of June 2026 is the vehicle for the unfinished items: American Express and other non-designated networks, online and mobile-wallet least-cost routing, and broader competition and efficiency questions. Two further threads are resilience planning rather than reporting: the cryptography work, with its December 2030 target for quantum-related mitigation, and the retail central bank digital currency assessment due in 2026/27, which remains exploratory. For the closest CBDC comparator see our note on the digital euro rulebook.

What payment service providers should be doing now

Terminal and gateway logic must stop surcharging designated network cards by 1 October 2026. Pricing models need the new domestic interchange caps from 1 October 2026 and the foreign-card cap from 1 April 2027 loaded as separate events. Merchant agreements and statements need the expanded fee breakdowns. Acquirers above the threshold need a data pipeline that can produce the quarterly publications, with the first due 30 October 2026.

The pattern is familiar from European policy, tracked in the quarterly European Payments Council reports roundup: cost moves out of the visible surcharge into capped, disclosed wholesale fees. For the Australian regulator’s wider agenda, our note on the ASIC and DFCRC regtech work gives the supervisory backdrop.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does card surcharging actually end in Australia?

Surcharging on debit, prepaid and credit cards across the designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks ends on 1 October 2026, when the RBA lifts its prohibition on no-surcharge rules for those networks.

Does the 1 October 2026 ban cover American Express?

No. It is scoped to the designated networks. American Express is deferred to the next review, planned for mid-2026 under the amended payments legislation, so treat non-designated networks as a separate, unresolved question.

What are the new interchange caps?

On the RBA’s settings, domestic debit and prepaid falls to 8 cents or 0.16 per cent ad valorem, domestic consumer credit to 0.3 per cent, domestic commercial credit stays at 0.8 per cent, and foreign-issued cards acquired in Australia are capped at 1.0 per cent. The domestic caps apply from 1 October 2026 and the foreign-card cap from 1 April 2027.

Did the RBA mandate least-cost routing for online and mobile payments?

No. The Board kept the existing expectations-based approach for in-person transactions and deferred online and mobile-wallet least-cost routing to a consultation expected in mid-2026. Online least-cost routing is not yet a requirement.

Which acquirers have to publish fee data, and from when?

Large acquirers must publish quarterly merchant service fees if they processed more than 10 billion dollars in eftpos, Mastercard and Visa transactions directly on behalf of merchants for the designated networks in the previous 12 months. The first publication is due 30 October 2026, covering 1 July to 30 September 2026.

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Key Takeaways

  • Surcharging on the designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks ends on 1 October 2026; the amended Standards were registered on the Federal Register of Legislation on 14 April 2026.
  • American Express and other non-designated networks are out of scope this round and were deferred to the next review, planned for mid-2026.
  • Domestic interchange caps fall from 1 October 2026 (debit and prepaid to 8 cents or 0.16 per cent, consumer credit to 0.3 per cent, commercial credit held at 0.8 per cent); the new 1.0 per cent cap on foreign-issued cards starts on 1 April 2027, and the RBA estimates the cuts lower merchant wholesale costs by around 910 million dollars a year.
  • Acquirers processing more than 10 billion dollars a year must publish quarterly merchant service fees, first due 30 October 2026 for the September 2026 quarter.
  • Least-cost routing keeps its in-store expectations approach; online and mobile-wallet routing was deferred to a mid-2026 consultation, so it is not yet a requirement.

Sources and References

Treating 1 October 2026 as a build deadline

The June 2026 Payments System Board meeting confirmed the hard part is over: the decisions are made, the Standards are registered, and the dates are fixed. The risk now is operational, reading 1 October 2026 as a single switch when it is a sequence. The teams that fare best will load each date as its own milestone and start with the data work, because the first publication covers the July-to-September 2026 quarter even though it is due after the headline surcharge change.

Disclaimer: The information on RegReportingDesk.com is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, regulatory, tax, or compliance advice. Always consult your compliance officer, legal counsel, or the relevant supervisory authority for guidance specific to your institution.

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