PAYDAY NEWS

Michael Sainsbury reports the giants of the payment card industry, Visa and Mastercard are under an intensifying spotlight in a range of jurisdictions, including the UK, EU and Australia, with a key focus on their opaque scheme fees. The European Commission has had a probe underway since mid-year into whether scheme fees charged by the card issuers have a financial impact on retailers. In May, the UK Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) released an interim report on scheme and processing fees for cards, highlighting significant concerns about Visa and Mastercard's market dominance and pricing practices. The PSR said that there was “no effective competition” in the UK market for core scheme and processing services for merchants and acquirers. The EC and UK probes now overlap with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) investigation into merchant payments costs and surcharging which includes pointed questions about “scheme fees”. In a submission to the RBA, Westpac says there are 400 different scheme fee charges and its wants more transparency and caps on new fees. Consumer advocacy group CHOICE raised similar concerns, "We would also support the RBA working towards establishing caps on scheme fees as it does interchange fees, to prevent price gouging and simplify the market." Australian Lottery and Newsagents' Association, representing 4,000 businesses with a high volume of low-value transactions, argued in its submission: "Scheme fees have grown increasingly complex with limited justification. The proliferation of fee categories appears designed to obscure rather than clarify costs." The Independent Payments Forum is also advocating for more transparency and caps. More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments

payFURL has partnered with Mastercard to support the roll-out of three payment solutions in Australia: Click to Pay, Secure Card on File and Payment Passkeys Service. payFURL is among the first platforms globally to offer all three solutions, providing businesses with "enhanced security, flexibility, and seamless transaction experiences". Surin Fernando, Senior Vice President, Customer Solutions Centre, Australasia, at Mastercard, said: “payFURL is the first in Australia to advance on this new technology, driving safer and faster payments online.” Brett Watson, CEO of payFURL said: “These new features will provide our clients with the latest in payment security and convenience, and we’re excited to see the impact they will have.” More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments

ANZ has announced the expansion of ANZ Express Payments, with inbound cross-border payments from all AUD Clearing Services customers, up to AUD$500, now processed in near-real time, 7 days a week. After becoming the first major Australian bank to execute a cross-border transaction in near-real time in July 2024, more than 400 international banks are now able to access ANZ Express Payments, via Australian Payments Plus' New Payments Platform (NPP). ANZ Managing Director, Transaction Banking, Lisa Vasic said: "ANZ is proud to be a leader in international and cross-border payments and this change means Australians can benefit from ANZ's investment in technology, even if they don't bank with ANZ." More in PAYDAY NEWS #payments #realtimepayments #A2A #NPP Brad Kelly Independent Payments Forum Peter Drennan Gabby Taylor Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) Reserve Bank of Australia

Banks are asking 60,000 consumers to delete and reload their debit cards in mobile wallets, to ensure they still work from News Year’s Day. Australian Payments Plus (AP+) is rolling out a technical update to fix an eftpos token expiry glitch on debit cards installed on mobile wallets like Apple Pay. Of the 19 million debit cards on mobile wallets, approximately 60,000 active debit cards will not be updated automatically. AP+ CEO Lynn Kraus AM said the company was acting "out of an abundance of caution" and apologised to anyone impacted by this. More in PAYDAY NEWS #payments #Mobilewallets Google Apple Samsung Electronics NAB Commonwealth Bank Westpac ANZ Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Brad Kelly Peter Drennan Gabby Taylor

Michael Sainsbury reports Westpac has taken aim at the “complex” fees charged by card schemes like Visa and Mastercard, as well as controversial “blended” pricing plans imposed on many small businesses, in a comprehensive response to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s inquiry into merchant fees and surcharging. As new Westpac CEO Anthony Miller takes the reigns at the country’s second largest bank, it has called for significant simplification of scheme fees and cap fee increases, stating there are now 400 categories of scheme fees and some have no clear value or purpose. "Scheme fees should be simplified by reducing the number of fees, and billing items and fee categories should be standardised across the card schemes in Australia. Westpac recommends a cap on scheme fee increases to limit their growth over time. This will manage the level of cost in the system. “Over time, card scheme billing structures have become much more complex, and each international card scheme now charges more than 400 categories of scheme fees. "New categories of scheme fees are periodically added to the card scheme billing structures and PSPs without any ability to opt out. “It’s unclear what purpose or value many of these billing items and new fees provide and they are adding unnecessary cost into Australia’s payments system. There needs to be a clear justification when new fee categories are added.” According to the RBA’s issues paper, $1.8 billion is paid in “net” scheme fees in Australia annually. No gross number has been published by the RBA to include “rebates” that are paid by the schemes back to banks and other scheme “participants”, like Coles and Woolworths by the schemes. More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments Independent Payments Forum Zeller Square SmartPay Commonwealth Bank ANZ NAB Coles Group Woolworths Supermarkets Ben Pfisterer Brad Kelly Peter Drennan Gabby Taylor

The Aussie December payments stats are out, courtesy of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Independent Payments Forum and Qi Insights. Use of cash continues its free-fall, while debit cards grow strongly at more than 12% and set a new record of $600 billion in purchases in a single month! See the latest trends on PAYDAY NEWS #Payments Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) Visa Mastercard American Express Australian Payments Plus Peter Drennan Brad Kelly Gabby Taylor

Payments data analyst Peter Drennan looks at the benefits of public disclosure on performance in #payments. Three years after the Reserve Bank of Australia required 35 payment service providers to report on the reliability of seven different services, we are starting to see significant improvements in aspects of #payments outages. This quarter, there were 9077 minutes of internally caused outages - the least ever. There were eight providers that had a clear September quarter, that is no major internally caused outages. The biggest problem remained in Online Banking, with 57% of the outage time - 5,203 minutes across 16 of the 33 providers. More in PAYDAY NEWS #outages #onlinebanking Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) Commonwealth Bank Adyen Citi HSBC ING Rabobank Australia Tyro Payments NAB Bank of Queensland Westpac ANZ Independent Payments Forum

PAYDAY NEWS columnist Brad Kelly writes about his recent break from LinkedIn and the personal consequences of sharing ideas, open debate and critical views on the business platform - particularly in smaller industries such as #payments. Brad also discusses some of his pet hates about his favourite social media platform, and tips on what not to do! More in PAYDAY NEWS #payments #socialmedia #blogs

Michael Sainsbury reports battle lines are being drawn over the push by the Federal government to ban surcharging. Payments service providers, banks, schemes and small businesses are vying for a favourable outcome in the Reserve Bank of Australia’s review of card payment costs and surcharging. PSP Zeller and its CEO Ben Pfisterer has been waging a war on LinkedIn, correcting what it calls “misinformation” and claiming its blended 1.4% “$0 for EFTPOS” surcharging model is preferred by merchants. PSPs such as Square, Smartpay Australia and Zeller, along with acquirer Tyro Payments, may face a potential reduction in revenue if they are forced to differentiate between debit and credit card fees, or reduce the overall cost of payments to consumers. These companies currently operate on business models that rely heavily on charging merchants a flat-rate fee for all card transactions, debit or credit. More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments Visa Mastercard Commonwealth Bank Westpac NAB Jerome Laxale MP Jim Chalmers Stephen Jones Independent Payments Forum Australian Restaurant & Cafe Association Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA) Wes Lambert CPA, FGIA, CAE, MAICD

George Lekakis reports the planned reconfiguration of Australia’s core retail payments architecture is potentially facing a protracted delay as banks and other payments industry participants confront the practical challenges of retiring the Bulk Electronic Clearing System (BECS). Industry experts are concerned that such a delay could fuel cost blowouts in the payments sector and undermine the growth trajectory of specialist payments businesses such as Cuscal Limited and Zepto. The Reserve Bank of Australia has begun dropping hints that Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet)’s 2030 target date for binning BECS might not be realised. Consultant Mark Townley believes there is a risk that the costs of managing payments across the sector could blow out the longer it takes to retire BECS. More in PayDay News. #Payments Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) Australian Payments Plus Brad Kelly Gabby Taylor Peter Drennan