CBA says RBA interchange reforms risk hurting Aussie firms

The Australian bank agreed that debit and credit surcharging should be eliminated.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) said that proposed changes to interchange fees by authorities could shift value away from Australian businesses rather than support them.

In their submission, the CBA agreed that debit and credit surcharging should be eliminated.

However, the bank took issue with proposed changes to interchange fees, warning that it "may not deliver the expected benefits."

"However, we are concerned that the proposed changes to interchange fees may not deliver the expected benefits and could result in unintended consequences - particularly a value shift away from Australian businesses and infrastructure providers to offshore entities," the Australian bank said.

In July 2025, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) proposed removing surcharges in eftpos, Mastercard and Visa cards and reducing interchange fees paid by businesses to card providers.

Australian authorities noted that surcharging is no longer achieving its intended purpose of steering consumers towards cheaper payment methods.

"Fewer people use cash these days and businesses are increasingly charging the same surcharge rate across debit and credit cards - making surcharges hard to avoid," the RBA said in its review.

It added that the interchange fees paid by businesses to card providers are too high, especially for small businesses.

The RBA said that it received a total of about 147 non-confidential submissions and 37 confidential submissions reviewing its proposed changes.

In their submission, the CBA proposed an alternative model, which involved limiting the discount available to big businesses to 30% of the underlying transaction rate rather than the over 60% they enjoy today.

This is so that small businesses don't pay more than their fair share of interchange, the bank said.

CBA also said that the RBA should give small businesses a plan including a POS software solution for debit and credit in store payments, which make up the majority of small business transactions.

The bank also suggested creating a marketplace to help small businesses find better deals with their provider or another provider; and introducing mandatory strong customer authentication for all online card payments to bring down payment system costs.