Project XBY

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 08

Pulse

The preceding ~90 days of macro, regulation, product, funding and milestone events. Each item is primary-sourced; no trade-press echo.

  1. 11 days agoregulation

    RBA publishes implementation guidance for October surcharge ban

    Following March's decision, the RBA published implementation guidance covering the 1 October surcharge ban, the 0.30% wholesale interchange cap and the April 2027 foreign-card cap. Acquirers must repaper merchant contracts before September; the ACCC will lead enforcement on residual surcharging post-October.

    • #rba
    • #regulation
    • #surcharging
    • #interchange

    Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

  2. 5 weeks agolaunch

    A2A Payments Roundtable publishes draft vision for consultation

    The Account-to-Account Payments Roundtable — convened by AP+, RBA and Treasury — published its draft vision for the future of A2A payments in Australia for public consultation. The vision centres on PayTo as the recurring-payment default and frames a target retirement window for the legacy direct-entry system before 2030.

    • #rba
    • #apn
    • #payto
    • #a2a

    Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

  3. 2 months agomilestone

    CBA completes PayTo retail-customer rollout; Westpac matches July

    Commonwealth Bank extended PayTo mandated-payments to every retail customer on 2 April, completing a staged rollout that began with business accounts in 2023. Westpac confirmed a matching timeline for July; ANZ and NAB still lag. PayTo coverage among major-bank retail customers passes 60% on the CBA milestone.

    • #cba
    • #payto
    • #npp
    • #banks

    Source: Commonwealth Bank

  4. 2 months agoregulation

    RBA confirms 1 October surcharge ban and 0.30% interchange cap

    The RBA's Payments System Board concluded the Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging on 25 March. Surcharges on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard payments are banned from 1 October 2026; the wholesale interchange cap drops from 0.80% to 0.30% (estimated A$910m a year merchant saving); a new foreign-card interchange cap takes effect 1 April 2027.

    • #rba
    • #regulation
    • #surcharging
    • #decision

    Source: Reserve Bank of Australia

  5. 2 months agodata

    AusPayNet: card fraud losses hit A$913m in FY24, CNP at 92%

    FY24 fraud losses rose 30% year-on-year, driven almost entirely by card-not-present fraud which now accounts for 92% of total losses. AusPayNet flagged weak 3DS coverage on smaller merchants and social-engineering-led credential theft as the primary vectors. The Confirmation of Payee mandate kicks in for major banks in October.

    • #auspaynet
    • #fraud
    • #cnp
    • #data

    Source: AusPayNet

  6. 3 months agomilestone

    NPP surpasses direct-entry on transaction volume for first time

    December 2025 data from AP+ showed NPP cleared more individual payments than the legacy direct-entry system for the first month on record. RBA framed the crossover as an inflection point ahead of the stated DE retirement before 2030; NPP now processes around A$6 billion of payments each day across more than 100 participating institutions.

    • #npp
    • #direct-entry
    • #milestone
    • #ap-plus

    Source: Australian Payments Plus