Card payment sucharges banned in Australia from 2026

[306]

It’s strange. Aside from tax avoidance for smaller businesses, I do r quite get why they’d think cash is a ‘free’ payment method. There’s no such thing. You’re not paying merchant fees but what if the costs in devoting a staff member’s time to go to the bank to do the banking and the security risks (aside from staff pretending to be robbed to take the day’s takings for themselves.

a/ Maybe, but if it's a small business, say about 1m pa, I'm not trusting a staff to count the money, let alone bank it. That's less than 20k per week, 5k a day. Considering you can deposit 10k per day through ATMs, anything under this amount is easily handled. And 1m in cash in $100 bills or gold is suprisingly small

b/ If I'm committing tax avoidance, why would I let someone else count it and bank it, plus the amount banked is lower (obviously)

Cash is "free" for these businesses, and electronic payments are a massive headache. Have you ever tired to reconcile payments that come from personal banks accounts for business customers, where you do not know know their legal personal names. And every time you tell them to add the description the next payment, they put the product name, or my business name in the description, instead of invoice number.

The amount you declare is a business decision, It's just as easy to give a few customers my personal payid details and have them pay me directly unstead of to the business.

Go to any bakery and pay by payid, and it's not to a business named account, most of these small businesses, rightly or wrongly, use personal accounts to manage their business expenses.

Or better still, you are helping them commit tax avoidance by directly paying into their personal accounts. a few dollars here and there. Then they take away the sign to pay by payid, and accept cash only for the rest of the day.

 

[Peter D]

I have always felt that, the theory that handling of cash is an added cost to a small business seems to be red herring in the argument.

A credit card merchant fee is an actual added cost that the business pays in dollars to an outside organisation.

In a small business cash handling including banking it is usually done by a business owner or an already employed and paid staff member. Visits to the bank are also in otherwise quiet but still staffed times. In itself it does not involve an actual special payment or cost.

I still don’t like paying the card fee.

 

[Waddygib]

I have always felt that, the theory that handling of cash is an added cost to a small business seems to be red herring in the argument.

A credit card merchant fee is an actual added cost that the business pays in dollars to an outside organisation.

In a small business cash handling including banking it is usually done by a business owner or an already employed and paid staff member. Visits to the bank are also in otherwise quiet but still staffed times. In itself it does not involve an actual special payment or cost.

I still don’t like paying the card fee.

Opportunity cost.

What could the staff member be doing instead?

What is the risk of theft?

What is the cost of serving fewer customers due to the need to physically handle the cash and count out the change?

Same as I said earlier: there are many variables costs in serving any customer (annoying customers are more expensive as they take up more time) but no surcharging for that.

Surcharging for payment choice is only possible because the cost is easy to calculate. That doesn't make it the right thing to do.

 

[306]

Opportunity cost.

What could the staff member be doing instead?

What is the risk of theft?

What is the cost of serving fewer customers due to the need to physically handle the cash and count out the change?

Same as I said earlier: there are many variables costs in serving any customer (annoying customers are more expensive as they take up more time) but no surcharging for that.

Surcharging for payment choice is only possible because the cost is easy to calculate. That doesn't make it the right thing to do.

That may be for a business with zero downtime, there are are no such businesses.

Opportunity cost is just a big money thing, in the real world, a boss will just get someone else to go it, or do it themself, and then spend that extra time after work to get $hit done.

 

[daft009]

That may be for a business with zero downtime, there are are no such businesses.

Opportunity cost is just a big money thing, in the real world, a boss will just get someone else to go it, or do it themself, and then spend that extra time after work to get $hit done.

still a PITA for myself, for the 2 cheques we get a year.... so hard to make it to a bank during their silly opening hours. cash would need more frequent visits
just pay me using CC and that 1% I absorb is worth it

 

[NoName]

Cash payments also take longer for the staff to process since they require stuffing around receiving the cash and then finding the right change. Also imagine a business handing large amounts of physical currency would incur higher insurance premiums. Staff theft would be higher. Probably many other costs of cash transactions that people aren’t even considering.