Card Payment Surcharges Banned in Australia from 2026

[CaptJCool]

Seeing more and more of these images being posted everywhere.

As I predicted earlier in this thread, consistent with economic theory, businesses are using this systemwide 'shock' to reset their margins.

It is way easier to justify a price increase when everyone else is also increasing their prices, and the end of surcharging gave everyone a perfect excuse to increase their prices.

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Interesting that places who own the building freehold and have zero finance don’t drop their coffee prices

 

[dairyfloss]

I'm happy I can pay my council rates and utilities with my card now surcharge free!

Oh, yes - that's at least one merchant that can't get away with raising the price... or at least not any more than usual! Time to cancel some Sniip payments!

 

[Happy Dude]

In the same breath, cash will still have relevance and perhaps even moreso in this new era of no surcharges - remains to be seen.

The effects of no cash are perfectly visible in, say, Sweden.

 

[MooTime]

should be buying giftcards with 20x bonus points to pay for rates!!

 

[SeatBackForward]

but in the meantime the slightly higher prices we pay at all venues cafe, coffee blah blah is set in stone, forgotten maybe but not forgotten in our purses / satchels.

Ye of little faith, the free market will resolve everything!

 

[MelbFlyer]

The effects of no cash are perfectly visible in, say, Sweden.

Whilst it may work over in Sweden, we're a different bunch down here in Australia and if we're talking / comparing countries, we could talk about other topics such as why EV uptake there is much higher compared to here. It's an apples and oranges conversation.

 

[Happy Dude]

Oh, yes - that's at least one merchant that can't get away with raising the price... or at least not any more than usual! Time to cancel some Sniip payments!

I thought sniip etc was used to earn points where none would be earned paying direct? It was essentially a net-square outcome, ie pay sniip a surcharge or pay the utility, council etc surcharge.

But it's true with the slashing of earn rates and SUBs, coupled with increased burn rates, reduced insurance, reward availability and whatnot, I'd have thought platforms like sniip would be in less demand, not more.

 

[Happy Dude]

Whilst it may work over in Sweden, we're a different bunch down here in Australia and if we're talking / comparing countries, we could talk about other topics such as why EV uptake there is much higher compared to here. It's an apples and oranges conversation.

No it's not. I'm sure there were plenty in Sweden who also thought the sky was falling when cash was removed.

 

[dairyfloss]

I thought sniip etc was used to earn points where none would be earned paying direct? It was essentially a net-square outcome, ie pay sniip a surcharge or pay the utility, council etc surcharge.

But it's true with the slashing of earn rates and SUBs, coupled with increased burn rates, reduced insurance, reward availability and whatnot, I'd have thought platforms like sniip would be in less demand, not more.

Sniip wants $5.75 for processing my $446 council rates quarterly, on Amex, so I can earn points at 0.5 QFF points per $1 (plus the Sniip QFF points, which is just 44 of them!). I can pay the council directly now with zero additional cost to pay with AmEx (or Visa or MC)

 

[flydoc2]

How often does the banking system go down? I can't remember an instance being impacted by that.

Taking this post at face value, there are disruptions more often than one might think or hope. Barely a month goes by without media reports of a payment systems outage, albeit usually resolved within hours, affecting 1 of the big 4 banks and impacting peoples’ ability to make everyday financial transactions