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.
Tab 05
Cross-border
Inbound and outbound remittance corridors, tourism flows, FX markup on retail cross-border, and the country's posture on stablecoin adoption. Corridor figures come from the World Bank RPW feed or the publishing central bank; both are cited when they disagree.
Remittance inflows
USD · 2023
Remittance outflows
USD · 2023
Inbound tourism spend
AUD · 2024
Outbound tourism spend
AUD · 2024
Avg. corridor cost
% · Q4 2024
Net sender
Top inbound corridors
- United KingdomUS$480M
via bank
Top outbound corridors
- PhilippinesUS$1.2B
via MTO
- IndiaUS$1.0B
via MTO
- ChinaUS$760M
via bank
Cross-border card
Card flow leaving and arriving
Cards issued domestically and used abroad reflect outbound consumer travel and cross-border e-commerce; volume acquired from abroad reflects inbound tourism and foreign online shoppers.
Issued volume spent abroad
AUD/year · 2024
Acquired volume from abroad
AUD/year · 2024
FX cost
What consumers pay above the interbank
Retail FX markup is the spread between the mid-market rate and the rate the consumer receives — the single largest friction point in small-ticket cross-border.
- FX regime
- free-float
- Reference
- AUD free-float since 1983
Source · RBA
Full reference
Remittances
Net Position: sender
Source: