What the company describes as “a planned and carefully governed succession” in Australia, comes as the global group is making wholesale changes at the top, sparking rumours of a sale or float as it moves aggressively into providing services for stablecoin payments.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has opened a major debate on the future of payments security but one issue affecting thousands of Australian merchants is conspicuously absent – the growing cost of chargebacks, first-party fraud and who should ultimately bear the losses.

The key problem for the Australia’s payments network operator is how to enforce its own rules and fund the potential upgrades demanded by regulators and politicians.

Two moves have converged on Apple’s checkout. Afterpay has launched a longer-term, fully regulated credit product exclusive to Apple, and American Express has turned rewards into spendable dollars inside Apple Pay. One splits the bill over two years, the other spends points like cash, and both are chasing the same tap.

Just 12 weeks before Australia’s controversial “no surcharge” rules take effect, Uber is embracing the one payment method merchants can still accept without paying card scheme fees – cash.

Just two weeks after cutting around 31 technology roles and signalling a strategic push into banking, data and AI, Tyro CEO Nigel Lee has brought his workforce together to kick off FY27.

Australia's biggest banks say a single cash utility is the only way to keep notes and coins flowing after Westpac exits the commercial cash business. But submissions to the ACCC reveal almost nobody supports the proposal in its current form. Even the Reserve Bank has warned the plan needs stronger safeguards.

A revised vision for account-to-account payments will be released today as regulators and government intensify scrutiny on competition, access and security reforms.

As the card “surcharge ban” looms and small businesses look to cash as an alternative, experts say the sworn enemies of cash – the global card schemes - are ramping up the price of cash with secret fees, as fresh scrutiny falls on Mastercard's recent ATM mobile fee hike in Australia.

Hello Clever has recruited former Bolt Financial boss Justin Grooms to spearhead its US expansion as it urges merchants to ditch cards for real-time payments ahead of the October 1 surcharge ban.

Preference for mobile over physical cards already seen among debit users is now showing up in credit, with more than half of all contactless in-store credit card transactions now being made with a mobile device.

With just 87 days to run until “no surcharge” rules are applied by the schemes one payments enthusiast is trying to do what the industry and regulators has failed to provide merchant customers – some clue as to the impacts on their businesses.

On The Interchange Bench this week, Buckley throws in the towel as Cuscal hits $1 billion, Tyro cooks up a new Bakers Delight offering, Slade lands on the ANZ Board, Sammons exits Linkly, another Zai exit as Paradkar departs, Beem does the Bolt, and a new report claims Asia’s payments market is rapidly becoming a “blueprint” for the future of real-time account-to-account (A2A) payments.

The Government has formally introduced its long-awaited legislation to “safeguard” Australia's cash distribution system, but the parliamentary debate has now been pushed back until September, despite critical regulatory processes already underway.