Card payment sucharges banned in Australia from 2026

[WilsonM]

What do people think are the implications for payment processors like pay. com (who share ownership with AFF). Will they change rates? Close down?

What are the implications for a website like AFF (and it's sister site Point Hacks) which have relied on credit card sign ups for income? Surely this will have an affect on profits.

Honestly, depends really on what the banks do - their margin is reduced, so they'll either pay sites less for sign ups, reduce bonuses or increase fees. Most likely a combination of all 3. But if offers go down, less people take out cards, less profit for banks and websites that earn money from credit card sign ups.

Payment processors seem less affected - especially if AMEX holds its earn rates up, as many people use points earned from business spend for personal use so its a just a way around that.

 

[burmans]

Different circumstances. In 2003 a lot of people still paid cash. The fee seemed reasonable then.

Particularly as the banks had to make a considerable investment in technology to support electronic payments. Whereas now that technology has largely been well and truly paid for and cash is actually much more expensive than electronic payments!

 

[Pete98765432]

So they'll increase the price of the $5 coffee to $5.10, and everyone will complain the price went up 10c without realising they were always paying $5.10 for it and got fooled by the $5 + 2% surcharge price tag.

Funnily, I don’t recall cafes reducing their (cash) prices when they introduced a surcharge.

 

[transpactraveller]

Or they'll all put the price to $5.20 and make even more...

And there's nothing stopping them doing that already, with or without surcharge.

 

[dairyfloss]

They're all saying how they'll need to increase prices to cover the surcharge, but all they're really doing is including the surcharge amount in the advertised price. So the price will be the same unless you were previously paying cash.

So they'll increase the price of the $5 coffee to $5.10, and everyone will complain the price went up 10c without realising they were always paying $5.10 for it and got fooled by the $5 + 2% surcharge price tag.

Yes - like I said… ‘offset’ (or more)