Card payment sucharges banned in Australia from 2026

[lovestotravel]

The surcharge tge RBA should be banning is the one on concert/theatre tickets for handling/delivery which doesnt occur. If you buy online and choose mobile ticket no human is handling/printing any ticket and emaik dekivery is free.

Unlees you buy in person at box office (very rare) no handling occurs.

Ticketmaster and Ticketek have a duopoly to rival Woolies & Coles, yet imagine the outrage if colesworth levied a fee for you to checkout via the self serve checkout.

Village Cinemas..

"Prices shown are for in-cinema purchases. $1.90 online booking fee applies per person"

Now that can be $1.90 on a $12 ticket...... or a 15% booking fee...

Gold class is $3.50 booking fee......

So it's free for me to walk up to a real person, take up their time, they then print me a ticket....

Businesses have no issue with this elsewhere in the world. They also don’t have weekend surcharges or holiday surcharges. And happily offer to split bills. Australia (and NZ) are the exception globally.

Our wages are too high for entry level jobs

 

[SeaWolf]

1.5% for a small business turning over 2million could be as high as 30k in extra fees to absorb.

This change will prompt them to shop around for a cheaper payment provider then. At the moment the consumer isn't picking businesses on the basis of what the surcharge will be, so there's no incentive for businesses to care how much it's costing, they'll choose the provider that's easiest or offers them the most bells and whistles, even if that results in a higher fee because they're just tacking it on at the till. Now that they can't do that any more they'll have an incentive to shop around for a cheaper payment provider and it'll generate more competition in the payment provider space as well.

 

[Mr_Orange]

So it's free for me to walk up to a real person, take up their time, they then print me a ticket....

It's ludicrous isn't it!

 

[oz_mark]

The surcharge tge RBA should be banning is the one on concert/theatre tickets for handling/delivery which doesnt occur. If you buy online and choose mobile ticket no human is handling/printing any ticket and emaik dekivery is free.

Unlees you buy in person at box office (very rare) no handling occurs.

Ticketmaster and Ticketek have a duopoly to rival Woolies & Coles, yet imagine the outrage if colesworth levied a fee for you to checkout via the self serve checkout.

Not really an issue for the RBA to deal with.

 

[hydrabyss]

This change will prompt them to shop around for a cheaper payment provider then. At the moment the consumer isn't picking businesses on the basis of what the surcharge will be, so there's no incentive for businesses to care how much it's costing, they'll choose the provider that's easiest or offers them the most bells and whistles, even if that results in a higher fee because they're just tacking it on at the till. Now that they can't do that any more they'll have an incentive to shop around for a cheaper payment provider and it'll generate more competition in the payment provider space as well.

Not sure how many businesses would not be shopping around for the best deal to start with and cant see a meaningful drop in rates when things change as cost like chargebacks and fraud will remain the same.

 

[Aeryn]

Not really an issue for the RBA to deal with.

Maybe not, should have said legislators. The online ticket fees make CC surcharge look small though.

 

[Aeryn]

So it's free for me to walk up to a real person, take up their time, they then print me a ticket....

Yep crazy unfair

 

[Mr_Orange]

Maybe not, should have said legislators. The online ticket fees make CC surcharge look small though.

The other part of online ticket sales is that the platforms are charging the event organiser to sell the tickets on their behalf and then charging us to buy them!

There is never an alternative avenue to buy the tickets since the platforms seems to enforce exclusivity with the organiser.

Doubling down on their BS, if an event gets cancelled by the organiser, the ticket sales platforms happily refund the ticket price but NOT their fees on the basis that they provided a service to you, the ticket buyer. Surely the service is provided to the organiser? It's not as if we go to a ticket sales agent and ask them to go and find us tickets to event X, Y or Z which would be them providing a service. We have no choice but to use them.

Long live Rip-off Australia!!!