Peter Drennan | PayDay News

Read analysis from Senior Business Analyst and Qi Insights,
Peter Drennan

Cash

Dec 10, 2025

Device-not-present transactions account for 85% of card payment growth

The dominance of device-not-present payments continues to reshape the Australian payments landscape. The latest RBA data shows that of the $107.4 billion increase in annual card spend over the past year, $90.8 billion, 84.6% of total growth, has come from online shopping, bill payments and subscriptions.

Dec 10, 2025

Mobile wallets grow 24% annually as Australians abandon physical cards

The RBA's payments data has reached a critical milestone: 13 months of mobile wallet statistics. For the first time, we can compare year-on-year growth, and the results confirm a fundamental shift in how Australians pay.

Nov 12, 2025

Credit card growth overtakes debit as interest-bearing balances hit four-year high

Annual growth in credit cards has overtaken annual growth in debit cards for the first time since August 2023, ending two years of stronger debit card growth.

Regulation

Nov 12, 2025

Merchant fees surge 10% ahead of proposed surcharge ban

New RBA data shows Australian merchants are paying $300 million more annually in card fees, despite political and regulatory scrutiny on surcharging and interchange reform.

Cash

Oct 8, 2025

Online set to dominate card transactions by end of 2026

The latest RBA payments data reveals Australian card spending retreated to $92 billion in August, while device-not-present transactions broke through 45% of total payments for the first time, putting online and bill payments on track to dominate by end of 2026.

Cash

Sep 10, 2025

Debit spend up, while credit pays the bills

July's RBA payment data, released on Monday, reveals diverging trends: credit cards struggle in-store but dominate bill payments, while strong debit card growth suggests returning consumer confidence in discretionary spending.

Digital & Online

Sep 3, 2025

RBA flags greater scrutiny of payments resilience

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has endorsed an ongoing research program examining interoperability, third-party and concentration risks, resilience arrangements for high-value payments and the vulnerability of the payments system to utilities outages.

Digital & Online

Aug 27, 2025

NPP outages up, with ME recording 20 hours out

More than half of NPP banks had outages in the June quarter, including three of the Big Four banks.

Aug 20, 2025

Is industry hedging surcharging losses with sneaky fee increases in the booming online channel?

While debate rages on about surcharging and the significant impact on retailers in Australia, a subtle but significant trend has emerged in the card fees data.

Merchant Service Fees

Aug 13, 2025

Merchants cop more card fee increases, despite RBA pressure

Merchant fees across Australia's major payment networks have increased over the past six months, despite intensified regulatory scrutiny from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

Cash

Aug 13, 2025

Monthly payments data report

The RBA released its retail payments data as at June 2025 on August 7, showing declines in in-store credit card spending and New Payments Platform (NPP) growth moderating.

Cash

Jul 9, 2025

Australia’s record credit card surge hides a surprising twist

Credit card spending just hit a two-year high, but the real story isn't about consumers. It's about businesses on the brink.

Cards

Jun 23, 2025

Aussies cut retail spend as data shows bills soaring

Australians are not spending less, they are spending differently. That is the message coming through clearly in the latest retail payments data, which shows card use continuing to grow, but with spending increasingly directed toward essential services rather than discretionary retail.

Cash

Jun 11, 2025

Card growth slows, but credit debt not yet getting out of hand.

This week the RBA released its Retail Payments data to April 2025. Here are the latest results.

Merchant Service Fees

May 21, 2025

Mastercard outage triggered record disruption in card payments, data reveals

New data reveals external dependencies remain a critical vulnerability for the Australian payments system, following a Mastercard outage in March which triggered the most widespread disruption to card payment services seen since reporting began four years ago.

Cards

May 8, 2025

Merchants cop even higher fees - led by 5% jump in fees charged by PSPs for eftpos transactions

Quarterly merchant fee data by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) shows more increases in Merchant Fees, another hit to businesses in the first quarter of 2025.

May 8, 2025

Personal card debt hits highest mark since 2021

This week the RBA released its Retail Payments data to March 2025. Here are the latest results.

Apr 8, 2025

Payments growth slowing as commercial card debt increases

This week the RBA released its Retail Payments data to February 2025. Here are the latest results.

Merchant Service Fees

Mar 25, 2025

Least Cost Routing enablement still has a long way to go

The RBA latest 6-monthly data on Least Cost Routing (LCR) highlights not only how far there is to go to full enablement, but the reasons why Australia’s acquirers aren't there yet.

Cash

Mar 11, 2025

Monthly Payments Data Report

The RBA released its Retail Payments data as at January 2025 on the 7th of March. Here are the latest results.

A2A

Mar 11, 2025

NPP data is back, led by PayID growth

NPP is back, data quality has been resolved and we can see the progress of NPP once again.

Cash

Mar 4, 2025

The decline in cash has plateaued but for how long?

What the data tells us about levels of cash use in Australian retail payments, and where will it be in 10 years time?

Cash

Feb 10, 2025

Monthly Payments Data Report

The RBA released its Retail Payments data as at December 2024 on the 7th of February. Here are the latest results.

A2A

Jan 14, 2025

First insights into PayTo growth - slow but steady

PayTo has been around for almost two years now, and new data from the RBA has shown a slow start for life for the real-time, direct debit payment technology.

Cash

Jan 14, 2025

Monthly Payments Data Report

The RBA released its Retail Payments data as at November 2024 on the 10th of January. Here are the latest results.

Cash

Dec 9, 2024

Monthly Payments Data Report

The RBA released it's Retail Payments data as at October 2024 on the 9th of December. Here are the latest results.

Nov 7, 2024

Monthly Payments Data Report

The RBA released it's Retail Payments data as at September 2024 on the 7th of November, including key quarterly stats on Merchant Fees. Here are the latest results.

Nov 7, 2024

Debit fees remain static despite interchange caps and massive volume increase

Average debit transaction fees have remained static over the past 10 years, despite regulatory intervention to reduce costs in the form of interchange caps, and a massive increase in volume.

A2A

Oct 11, 2024

Recurring bill payments to help boost NPP real time migration

Shifting enterprise and recurring bill payments to the New Payments Platform (NPP) forms part of a plan to accelerate the migration of transactions onto the real time network, as the industry races towards the proposed closure of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS) in 2030.

Cards