PAYDAY NEWS

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

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) reform has passed through the Parliament, while other key payments legislation will not be dealt with until 2025. The new #BNPL legislation was passed last week – the final week of Parliament for 2024. It amends the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and the National Consumer Credit Protection Regulations to bring BNPL into the existing regulatory framework for other credit products. However, proposed reforms to the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998 remain before the Parliament until next year. Read more in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments Zip Co Afterpay #BuyNowPayLater Klarna Commonwealth Bank Splitit Independent Payments Forum Brad Kelly Peter Drennan Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) Stephen Jones Jim Chalmers

Breaking: The Federal Government today announced it will stop passing on debit surcharges from the ATO and Services Australia from 1 January 2025. The move follows a review that found “is likely unlawful in certain circumstances ” for Government agencies to levy a debit surcharge without proper legislation. These rules do not apply to private merchants and retailers. PAYDAY NEWS recently raised the legality of Federal Government debit surcharges, which vary wildly from 0.4% for the Australian Taxation Office to 1.55% for entry into a national park, while Australian Department of Home Affairs charges 1.4% for both debit and credit cards, in what appears to be a blended rate. In October, the NSW Government revealed that it had unlawfully charged about $144m in fees on government services such as licence renewals, car registrations and fine repayments since 2016 and moved to immediately lift all fees. More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments #Surcharges Independent Payments Forum Australian Payments Plus Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) NSW Treasury Jim Chalmers Katy Gallagher Jerome Laxale MP

The Albanese Government this week announced it was taking action so Australians can continue to pay with cash for essential items if they want to, while also ensuring an orderly transition to phase out cheques by 2029. A joint statement from Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, said “there is an ongoing place for cash in our society”. The Government said it will mandate that businesses must accept cash when selling essential items, with appropriate exemptions for small businesses to be decided in a consultation that will begin shortly. The consultation will also cover what further steps are required to ensure the long-term and sustainable distribution of cash to enable adequate access. George Lekakis PAYDAY NEWS recently reported that as the average duration of system outages continues to blow out, Australian banks are facing a backlash from retail and business customers over the perceived instability of their digital banking platforms. The Government’s statement said cash provides an easily accessible back-up to digital payments in times of natural disaster or digital outage. National Seniors Australia and others welcomed the cash mandate. The Treasurer has written to the CEOs of the four major banks outlining the Government’s expectation that they participate in the Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) transition coordination program to exit cheques by September 2029, and provide adequate support to all cheque using customers to ensure their continued financial inclusion. More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments #Cash Independent Payments Forum Westpac ANZ NAB Commonwealth Bank

The migration of the underlying network of COIN (Community Of Interest Network) to Transaction Network Services (TNS) is now complete. Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) CEO Andy White says “we have achieved a future-proof solution to help deliver critical reliability and resiliency”. The previous Telstra-managed COIN network came under scrutiny, particularly after an outage in July 2019 which saw all of Australia's Big Four banks as well as Woolworths Supermarkets, Caltex Australia and Australia Post hit by a national outage that crippled electronic payments and terminals during the commuter peak hour and late night shopping. More in PAYDAY NEWS #Payments Independent Payments Forum Michael Johnson George Lekakis

Michael Sainsbury reports businesses incurred $6.4 billion in annual merchant fees just for accepting debit and credit cards during the 2022/2023 fiscal year across Australia, but it is almost impossible to track where all the money went. These fees are collected by the nation’s banks, card schemes and other - mainly fintech - payments providers on almost $900 billion worth of transactions, "yet their complex web is almost completely opaque". While analysts and campaigners question the amount businesses currently pay in card fees, CBA CEO Matt Comyn says the nation’s largest acquiring business is losing money. Meanwhile, one component - $1.8 billion in net scheme fees - has only seen Visa pay $1.7m in Australian tax last year, while Mastercard paid only $10.3m. More in PAYDAY NEWS. #payments #surcharging Reserve Bank of Australia Ellis Connolly Independent Payments Forum Peter Drennan Commonwealth Bank ACCC Jerome Laxale MP