Asia-Pacific · GDP rank #13

Australia

AU · AUD @ 0.7139/USD

Cards dominate by value; instant payments have moved from niche to primary rail in under a decade. The RBA's March 2026 Review confirmed a 1 October 2026 ban on card surcharges and a cut in interchange caps to 0.30% wholesale, alongside a new foreign-card interchange cap from April 2027. Contactless is saturated; PayTo is displacing direct debit; CNP fraud remains the headline security problem.

NPP overtook direct-entry on volume Dec 2025; RBA confirmed a 1 Oct 2026 card-surcharge ban and 0.30% interchange cap in March.

Key figures

Total card + instant + cash payment value

AUD trillions · FY2024

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

High

Digital payments share of consumer transactions (by volume)

% · FY2024

RBA CPS wave cadence is ~3y; FY24 figure extrapolated from 2022 survey + industry trend.

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

Med

NPP transactions (annualised)

transactions/year · FY2024

Source: Australian Payments Plus (NPPA)

High

Cash share of POS transactions by volume

% · 2022 (most recent survey wave)

Industry estimates put 2025-26 figure at 8–10%; canonical RBA number is 13% for 2022.

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

High

Contactless share of card-present transactions

% · FY2024

Saturated; remaining ~1% is chip+PIN required above limit or legacy terminals.

Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

High

Adults using any mobile wallet monthly

% of adults · 2024

Source: Roy Morgan / AusPayNet

Med

Top insights

Surcharging banned from October; interchange cap halved

The RBA's Payments System Board confirmed in March 2026 that surcharges on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard payments will be banned from 1 October 2026. The wholesale interchange cap drops from 0.80% to 0.30% — a cut RBA estimates will save merchants A$910m a year. A new foreign-card interchange cap takes effect 1 April 2027. The 2017 weighted-average caps remain in force until October; merchants currently pricing on sum-of-MDR will need to absorb roughly A$960m a year in lost surcharge revenue.

1 source

NPP has moved from adjunct to primary rail

Transaction volume on NPP (1.6B/yr FY24) now exceeds batch-cleared direct entry for low-value credits. PayTo, live since 2022, is starting to displace direct debit for recurring payments; adoption among SMBs has run ahead of the big-four banks' retail push. The RBA's stated intent is for DE to be decommissioned before 2030.

2 sources

CNP fraud is 92% of card fraud — and rising

AusPayNet reported A$913m in total card fraud in FY24, with card-not-present accounting for 92% of losses. The combination of saturated contactless (eliminating physical-card fraud) and weak 3DS coverage on smaller merchants is driving a structural shift the major schemes have not yet solved at the issuing-bank level.

1 source

Strategic openings

PayTo displacement of direct debit in SMB recurring

Small businesses have adopted PayTo faster than consumer retail, mostly via accounting-platform integrations (Xero, MYOB). Any PSP offering PayTo-native subscription billing with reconciliation primitives has an 18–24 month window before banks move downmarket.

1 source

Acquirer reshuffle from confirmed surcharge ban and interchange cut

With the surcharge ban confirmed for 1 October 2026 and the wholesale interchange cap dropping to 0.30%, merchants pricing on sum-of-MDR will need to absorb A$960m a year of lost surcharge revenue against an annualised A$910m interchange tailwind. Acquirers offering blended least-cost-routing capture the SMB refresh cycle; gross-interchange-priced incumbents lose share through 2027.

1 source

Wallet-provisioning share shift post-card-issuance APIs

Apple Pay remains the default for iOS users but CDR data-right expansion and bank-side card issuance APIs are making it viable for retailers and super-apps to provision cards directly into their own wallets. The window is small — consumer habit is sticky — but the legal path is now clear.

1 source

Disruption intensity

moderate

Rail and acquirer economics are in flux (NPP displacement, surcharge review) but the issuing side is concentrated and stable; BNPL has been re-regulated rather than displaced.