Card payment sucharges banned in Australia from 2026

[LondonAussie]

Australia also was an early adopter if real time bank to bank payments and with payid it is very easy to just sort it out once the restaurant is paid.

Probably less demand for bill splitting as a result.

This just isn’t true. The UK’s had simple instant payments between bank accounts for much longer than Australia has.

Australia’s faster payments is a mess with needing a payID or to check if it’s Osko supported or some other complication or incompatibility. And even then it’s not guaranteed, especially if you try to send larger amounts.

Sending money in the UK I’m confident it will always arrive in a few seconds. In Australia you can never be sure if it will take 3 seconds or 3 days.

 

[Happy Dude]

Yes, that is inconsiderate of them, it's almost like they are trying to steer clear of any money laundering concerns while also limiting the amount of liability-funded cash they carry......

If that was of any concern to them, they'd remove all high value GCs and the pre-paid visa/mastercards from the shelves altogether, especially the $1000 ones from Officeworks, rather than just randomly hand out a flyer or limit them to five per account per day (my family has just four accounts).

Excluding them from the bonus points won't stop the launderers, not that they'd scan a rewards card anyway. But it will mean that old Happy Dude will need to buy a fat stack of them to buy a new computer and some poor old checkout dude processing them will go delulu, without a solulu.

 

[Waddygib]

This just isn’t true. The UK’s had simple instant payments between bank accounts for much longer than Australia has.

Australia’s faster payments is a mess with needing a payID or to check if it’s Osko supported or some other complication or incompatibility. And even then it’s not guaranteed, especially if you try to send larger amounts.

Sending money in the UK I’m confident it will always arrive in a few seconds. In Australia you can never be sure if it will take 3 seconds or 3 days.

Right but we're talking there was large uptake of peer-to-peer real time payments in the last 7 or 8 years, of a size relevant to splitting a restaurant bill, compared to a lot of other countries in the world. My thought is that perhaps that is why bill splitting tech at POS did not take off as fast here, compared to most other countries.

If bill splitting took off in the UK, I guess my thought is wrong.

I didn't realise payid was so flawed; genuinely never has an issue with it for small amounts.

 

[dajop]

Is there not a difference between splitting the bill (itemised, which has always been an issue) and splitting payment (put x on this card and y on this one, which seems to only have become more of an issue recently)? Last time I tried this was simply told computer says no. (Or similar words).

 

[Aeryn]

If going with friends that i trust, i just pay the total (more points for me) and have my friends transfer their share to me. Osko has it in my account within 24hours (usua.ly right away), well before the CC needs to be paid.

If with people i dont trust, i pick a venue where you order by QR code or pay at counter/bar as you order so nothing to divvy up at the end.

That said plenty of places allow you to split bills, you just tell them what items you had and they select on tablet/screen and you pay for your bit.

Bill splitting has no bearing on surcharges.