RBA Surcharge Changes: What It Means for Us and Our Customers
On 31 March 2026, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) confirmed it will remove card payment surcharges across Visa, Mastercard and eftpos transactions, effective from 1 October 2026. American Express has also indicated it will adopt a similar policy of banning surcharges.
What this means:
The removal of surcharges changes how payment costs are surfaced, not how payments function.
Australian Merchants will no longer be able to apply a surcharge at checkout, but the underlying cost of accepting payments remains. As a result, optimisation becomes more important.
For many businesses, this shifts the focus to:
- approval rates and conversion
- cost of acceptance
- revenue protection (safeguarding against fraud)
- overall payments performance
What Fat Zebra is doing
We will remove surcharge functionality for Australian merchants in line with the RBA requirements ahead of the October 2026 deadline.
There is no immediate change to your current processing.
Over the coming months, we will:
- confirm timing of any required changes
- provide clear guidance on what this means for your setup
- support you through any updates where needed
What businesses should do now:
There’s no immediate action required, but this is a good moment to take a closer look at your payments setup:
- how it’s performing today
- where revenue leakage may be occurring
- where costs can be better managed
For many businesses, the biggest gains will come from optimisation, not expansion.
A more transparent system:
As our CEO, Pred Dragila explains:
“A well-designed payments system should be transparent and equitable for everyone. Changes like this shift the focus away from how costs are passed on, and towards how the system performs overall.”
Looking ahead:
We’ll continue to share updates as we move closer to the October 2026 deadline.
If you have questions or want to review your payments setup, your account manager can help.
