Will my merchant fees go down in 2026?

What the RBA is actually cutting

From 1 October 2026 the RBA is lowering interchange caps — interchange being the wholesale fee built into what you pay to accept cards. The consumer credit cap falls from 0.80% to 0.30%, and domestic debit and prepaid moves from 10c-or-0.20% to 8c-or-0.16%. These cuts are estimated to save Australian businesses around $910 million a year. But interchange is only one component of your total Merchant Service Fee (MSF), and the MSF itself is not capped — so the headline cuts describe a lower input cost, not an automatic lower bill.

Whether you see it depends on your provider

A lower interchange cap only reaches your business if your provider passes the saving through to your pricing. On an interchange-plus plan, where you pay interchange plus a fixed margin, a cut to interchange should flow through fairly directly. On a flat-rate or tiered plan, where you pay one blended percentage, the provider may or may not adjust that rate. Note too that commercial and business-card interchange is being retained at current levels while the 0.50% benchmark is abolished, so business-card costs could actually rise. The most reliable lever in your control is comparing your current indicative rate against the market — we cannot guarantee savings, but a comparison shows whether you are paying more than you need to.

Source: RBA Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging — Conclusions Paper (March 2026).