The Prod

The ATO will keep taking credit cards until 30 June 2027

On the day the ban began, the Australian Taxation Office said it would stop accepting credit cards at the end of November rather than absorb the merchant fees. On Friday 9 October the Treasurer announced transitional funding so the ATO can keep accepting them until at least 30 June 2027, with the cost to be settled in the mid-year budget update in December. The Coalition had promised legislation to reverse the decision outright.

The cut-off is postponed, not cancelled. The ATO's payment page still says credit cards end, and after June it points taxpayers to third-party payment providers that charge their own fees. Debit cards and bank transfers continue. One detail worth passing to small business clients: the June quarter BAS is due on 28 July 2027, four weeks after the window closes.

For us this is the acceptance case study of the year. A biller with enormous volume and no margin was handed the choice between absorbing, repricing and exiting, and its first instinct was to exit. Card payments on a BAS can be worth up to 55 days of working capital to a small business. That is the value argument we need every large biller to hear before June.

Contact Tom Isaacs · Acceptance, acquiring & surcharges

Rewards have been repriced. The loyalty market is being resized.

The consumer credit interchange cap fell from 0.80% to 0.30% on 1 October and issuers moved with it. CommBank Awards became CommBank Yello, with earn rates tied to how much you bank with them. At NAB a $100 gift card went from 20,900 to 33,770 points and Rewards Signature became the Rewards Travel Card at $395 a year. ANZ cut the Frequent Flyer Black sign-up bonus from 130,000 to 80,000 points, caps points after $25,000 of monthly spend from 28 October and withdraws card travel insurance on 9 December.

Loyalty consultancy Ellipsis has rebuilt its market model in response. It puts Australian loyalty investment at $5.8 billion in FY26 and trims its FY30 forecast to $6.6 billion, with the share funded by cards falling from about a third to the low twenties. Its sharper claim is that merchant service fees have stayed flat or risen since 1 October, so the freed margin retailers were expected to reinvest has not appeared.

Mass market credit now has to stand on features that interchange does not fund: instalments, benefits, controls and service.

Contact Justine Hinwood · Credit cards & mass market credit

Visa Recurrent: the subscription is the relationship, and someone else is managing it

Recurring payments are where a card becomes default. They are also where confusion, disputes and silent churn start: a forgotten trial, a cancellation that did not stick, a reissued card that broke six billing relationships at once. The Reserve Bank now tracks subscriptions charged to cards as their own category in its Consumer Payments Survey, which is a fair sign of how much everyday spend they carry.

Globally, Visa's enhanced Subscription Manager lets an issuer show cardholders every recurring charge in the banking app and view, switch or cancel it there. It reached North American issuers this year, with Latin America and the Caribbean next. In Australia the subscription cancellation rules arriving across 2026 and 2027 push merchants the same way: easy to join has to mean easy to leave.

The product question for our market is who the cardholder thinks of when a subscription goes wrong. If the answer is the issuer's app, the card stays on file. If it is a third-party subscription tracker or an AI agent that cancels on their behalf, it may not.

Editor's flag. The Visa Recurrent research figures for AU and NZ were not in the material this issue was compiled from. Callum to supply the headline numbers and sample before circulation; this piece currently rests on public sources only.

Contact Callum Glendenning · Visa Recurrent & subscription payments

New Zealand watches Australia go first

New Zealand's bill to ban in-store surcharges on EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard passed its first reading in 2025 with a target of May 2026. That date has passed and no new one has been set. ACT has withdrawn its support, National says it still wants a ban without committing to timing, and the Greens would back one paired with a 1% cap on merchant fees.

The Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister says the government is committed to getting it right and will watch Australia's rollout, pointing to interchange cuts worth up to $290 million a year once fully in place. Officials' own example shows why small merchants are unconvinced: a business processing $330,000 in card payments saves about $500 a year from those cuts.

Note the scope difference if a ban does come. The New Zealand proposal covers in-store payments only, where Australia's applies online as well. For issuers and acquirers working both markets, that means two rulebooks for the foreseeable future. It was a quiet month in the Pacific Islands; nothing new to report against the PNG and Fiji items in Issue 1.

Contact Sol Williams · New Zealand & Pacific Islands