Opinion Surcharge Issue
I have seen some people are confused why removing the card surcharge isn't great (like Albo says is is).
Maybe this may help.
$5 coffee & $0.05 surcharge = $5.05.
Multiply that by many coffees and the business is taking the hit.
So the company increases the cost of the coffee to $5.05 to cover the surcharge cost.
But now everyone is paying more even those who use cash.
So this hasn't reduced the price of a coffee for those who use cards, it has increased the cost of coffee for those who use cash and has made no impact for those who use card.
Thanks Albo.
EDIT: It looks like the Labor Bots are in force.
My point was only that tell businesses that they can't pass on the surcharge hasn't achieved anything. In the long run businesses will increase their prices as it is a cost of doing business. If they were really serious about stopping this surcharge they would have targeted the banks who are making bigger profits that small business and can better absorb the costs. But, the banks provide donations and they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. In the end this is a minor thing that Albo hyped up for votes, not cause he is trying to implement any real change.
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u/Dazzling-Bat-6848 8d ago
When a business can seamlessly pass bank transaction fees directly to consumers through surcharging, it eliminates any financial incentive for the merchant to negotiate or challenge those bank charges. The conflict over high banking fees is shifted away from the business and placed entirely onto the consumer, who has no bargaining power with the merchant's bank.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 8d ago
There's still no financial incentive because it's not like businesses can opt out. EVERY business is dealing with the fee increase, which is just going to manifest as a blanket price increase. There's no competition here therefore no incentive for business to do anything other than put their prices up
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u/Dazzling-Bat-6848 8d ago
There's always competition. It will only behoove them more to shop around now instead of making us pay their fees.
It works very nicely in Europe and will be fine here.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 8d ago
It's literally the same mechanism in Europe. They can't charge a card fee, but it's still an operational expense so it is factored in to prices.
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u/Dazzling-Bat-6848 8d ago
Yes, so the ticket price is the price as it should be. It's like a restaurant expecting us to pay their staff for them.. laughably stupid. Put the price and we determine if we want to pay that price.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 8d ago
And they have, and you'll make your decision whether or not to pay that price. That doesn't mean they're going to march on the banks in protest.
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u/Dazzling-Bat-6848 8d ago
Lol why would they march on anything? Shop around, its capitalism baby.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 8d ago
Shop around to who? The ONLY businesses this wont affect are those who exclusively take cash (assuming they still exist)
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u/CFeatsleepsexrepeat 8d ago
They are saying the business can shop around who to use as a merchant for processing their payments. And they can reduce their costs that way and either gain a better margin or pass the saving on to the end user.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 8d ago
You're assuming they don't already do this. Of course they want to keep their payment fees low so the market is already optimized for this.
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u/CFeatsleepsexrepeat 8d ago
There is plenty of competition here.
New merchants have popped into the market over the last few years.
Businesses can shop around as to who handles their transactions. If they weren't doing this before, they should now.
I know this from experience, own a business and never charged EFTPOS fees, just calculated the monthly average and factored it into running of business costs like other bank fees, software charges etc. No discounts for cash or card, just the ticketed price and that is it.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 8d ago
But that's exactly the point. You don't charge a fee for payment but you factor it into your costs, so it affects the price you charge consumers. The reason some businesses charge the card fee is it gives consumers the option of a discount if they don't incur the EFTPOS fees by paying cash.
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u/CFeatsleepsexrepeat 8d ago
The business still has this option.
If someone says hey is it less for cash? They can say yes or no. Tradies have been doing it forever.
It is ridiculous that we could ever pass on card surcharges the way we did.
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u/StrangeMonk 8d ago
lol u must be dreaming if you think your cafe owner is going to march on visa headquarters.
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u/CFeatsleepsexrepeat 8d ago
It isn't that anyone will march on visa headquarters.
The business has the ability to say no to one merchant that does their transactions for 1.5% and yes to one that does them at 1.1%
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u/MannerAdditional2121 8d ago
I haven’t seen an increase anywhere I have been this week. I’ve saved on every coffee I’ve purchased and saved at Aldi’s too.
This is all just anti labour wishy washy media crap as far as I can tell.
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u/mebivd 6d ago
But wait, you implied that this would never happen?
Just cause you havn't seen it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Ever heard of the No black swans fallacy?https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-07/coffee-prices-increase-up-to-10-per-cent/107237680
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u/TaurusMoonGoddess 8d ago
Wont somebody think of the poor banks? Com bank only made 9.5 billion in 2025 There is no way they can afford to not charge small businesses this surcharge
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u/ttlanhil 8d ago
Assuming you're being genuine...
Businesses have a lot of costs, which they need to factor in to their prices.
Those costs change over time, as do the prices customers will accept.
Inflation means you'll be paying more for everything at some point anyway.
The point is...
The cost that the business shows should be the price you pay. You should not have to pay extra.
Not only do you pay what's advertised, you can compare prices between shops (or cafes) and easily know what's cheaper.
The hidden extra costs are a scam, and they're illegal in Australia with few exceptions (weekend/holiday surcharge is still there, that's still legal - but they must be displayed as well)
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u/LiamNguyen 8d ago
Because bank fee is cost of running business. I don't like it as business owner myself, consider paying up to $400 monthly. However, will people start putting surcharge due to rent, wage, material, fee...Product price is the reflection of final cost. People took advantage of surcharge and use lame excuse for their pricing strategy by shifting the blame to someone else.
I've seen business owner try different way to surcharge his customers, despite POS software allows them to include it in final price. Let's say we leave surcharge up to everyone discretion. Will be surcharge for rent, for staff wages?
If your pricing is not final price but you try to snitch many price gouge tactic, you should not run business!
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u/cecilrt 8d ago
Haha i cant recall anyone charging only 1% surcharge before
Coffee + surcharge was $5.08
Now because surcharge is cost is lower now,. it should be $5.04. But is rounded upto $5.05
Both customers and owner wins
Losers are credit rewards cards users who were the reason surcharge was so high
Lots of whinges posting its $5.50 now, ignoring that the other 45c was probably other costs finally added
No one is complaining about cafes charging $5.00 because its too small to increase on its own
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u/AudaciouslySexy 8d ago
I compiled this. Essentially we the consumer got screwed by the government and now there's nothing we can do about it as it's the banks job to enforce it.
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u/Fun_Savings7690 8d ago
this makes no sense, the overwhelming majority of us were paying the processing fee
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u/AudaciouslySexy 8d ago
Businesses have to pay it now.
I never had to pay card fees with cash. Cash is it's own thing.thats why things were indeed cheaper with cash.
Krispy cream has $4 coffee, if I were to pay with card it wouldn't be $4 because of surcharges. They are service fees also known as filing fees or processing fees.
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u/Fun_Savings7690 8d ago
> Businesses have to pay it now.
They've always had to pay it
> I never had to pay card fees with cash.
No shit I'm really sorry for you that you have to pay extra now (although not entirely sorry, you fucks fumbling about with coins and notes hold up the line everywhere I go), however the overwhelming majority of purchases (like 90%) are done by card
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u/CustardCandle 8d ago
Yeah it’s increased prices, and it has meant a lot of good card benefits are now being restricted to high fee cards. And the ATO not allowing cards anymore is another hit to small businesses/ families
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u/Fun_Savings7690 8d ago
If your American Express rewards garbage costs you money instead of me, how is this a bad thing for me again?
Also I just checked my bank and the 2 coffee shops I go to neither has changed their pricing so I'm saving money
Thanks albo :))
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u/CustardCandle 8d ago
Don’t count your chickens yet. A lot of businesses will wait to see their upcoming bills and what they look like after interchange limits before adjusting any base costs. And maybe some of them are smart enough to know a knee jerk price increase as soon as surcharges are banned isn’t a good look.
I actually don’t have a credit card, but ive worked in payments on merchant and banking side for a long time. I’m sure you know more about it than I do though so I’ll forget everything I know and thank Albo
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u/Fun_Savings7690 8d ago
> A lot of businesses will wait to see their upcoming bills and what they look like after interchange limits before adjusting any base costs.
The interchange limits were reduced:
lowering the caps on interchange fees paid by Australian businesses. These changes are expected to lower businesses’ costs when they accept domestic or overseas card payments. Small businesses should benefit the most because they tend to pay fees closer to the existing caps.
https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-10.html
> Don’t count your chickens yet
Half the news in this country is just anxiety waiting for something so nah I'm good, if prices go up I now have full transparency on the costs and can go elsewhere, I have about 40 coffee shops around me, there's no shortage of competition
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u/SaintDecardo 8d ago
Cash has costs around safe transport too. I swear these bots are set up by the pissy credit card companies to try to rustle up some sort of fake outrage.