As the surcharge “ban” comes into effect today, Visa and Mastercard have unveiled hefty hikes to their credit card fees for large and mid-sized merchants in an effort to claw back interchange losses for the issuing banks. Visa’s rates show it’s also targeting Australian governments and the education sector in the price increases, while Australia Payments Plus missed the publication deadline for its new eftpos rates altogether.

As major banks scramble to unify fragmented trans-Tasman payment systems, agile fintechs and digital currencies are quietly siphoning off high-margin cross-border commercial payment flows.

Australian fintech funding doubled this financial year with the top funded areas including banking, financial infrastructure and payments. But the money is concentrated in a handful of companies such as Airwallex, industry executives told PayDay News.

Rewards are shrinking and fees are increasing, but Westpac says consumer credit cards remain an important cash-flow tool as the RBA cuts interchange rates and CommBank prepares a rewards-heavy Discover charge card.

A three-hour NAB outage has renewed scrutiny of legacy banking systems and prompted calls for standardised reliability targets, faster reporting and senior accountability when digital services fail.

Flywire is switching off card surcharges for Australian hotel clients like Hamilton Island ahead of Thursday's ban, but its hospitality sales chief says guests will pay for the card fees in other ways.

Australia’s payments roundtable is still weighing how to deliver bulk and pull payments, with customer forums starting in October and a roadmap yet to set priorities or dates.

As inflation bites, growing resistance to price increases and further pressure on margins, Australian SMEs need to find ways to utilise the staff and resources they already have, says Earlypay’s CEO James Beeson.