From September, excessive payment surcharges will be banned in all businesses across Australia. 

The ban will officially limit the amount of surcharge on customers for use of payment methods such as EFTPOS in both debit and prepaid, MasterCard, Visa and American Express issued by an Australian Bank. 

The surcharge will be considered as excessive once it exceeds the permitted costs outlined by the Reserve Bank of Australia. 

“Small businesses that choose to impose payment surcharges should review their surcharge levels to ensure they are compliant when the ban starts applying to them in under two months,” ACCC Deputy Chair Dr Michael Schaper said. 

“Businesses can only pass on to customers what it costs them to process a payment such as bank fees and terminal costs. For example, if your cost of acceptance for Visa Credit is one per cent you can only surcharge on per cent on Visa credit card payments onto your customers,” he added. 

In preparation, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission is urging small businesses to educate themselves and also to work with banks to receive business merchant statements. 

The banks will shortly be issuing information to help businesses to calculate their appropriate surcharges. 

In addition, business merchant statements are to clearly set out the business’ costs of acceptance for each of the different payment methods. 

Payment types such as BPay, PayPal, Diners Club cards and American Express cards issued by American Express will not be covered.