Australia announces plans to ban debit card surcharges

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says determination would assistance easiness outgo of surviving for households.

Australia has announced plans to prohibition debit paper surcharges that the country’s cardinal slope estimates are costing consumers astir 1 cardinal Australian dollars ($671m) a year.

Australia’s centre-left authorities said connected Tuesday that it would question to prohibition the “unfair and excessive” charges from the commencement of 2026 taxable to a reappraisal of paper payments by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his archetypal precedence was to easiness the outgo of surviving for households and the projected prohibition would beryllium “another measurement to support Australians.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the determination would guarantee a “better deal” for consumers and little costs for tiny businesses.

“Consumers shouldn’t beryllium punished for utilizing cards oregon integer payments, and astatine the aforesaid time, tiny businesses shouldn’t person to wage hefty fees conscionable to get paid themselves,” Chalmers said.

The prohibition would bring Australia into enactment with a fig of different jurisdictions, including the European Union, which banned debit paper surcharges successful 2018.

The RBA has estimated that Australians are losing 960.26 cardinal Australian dollars ($645m) each twelvemonth to surcharges arsenic consumers progressively opt to wage by paper alternatively of cash.

The displacement to cashless payments accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the stock of transactions made successful currency declining from 32 percent to 16 percent from 2019-2022, according to RBA data.

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Al Jazeera and quality agencies