Australia Revises Visa, MasterCard Interchange Fees Downward

The Reserve Bank of Australia has announced revisions to interchange fees to take effect November 1. The bank said that, using data supplied by issuers of credit cards and Visa and MasterCard, it has calculated that "the common benchmark to apply for the three years from 1 November 2006 is 0.50 per cent. This compares with the current average interchange fee in these schemes of a little under 0.55 per cent." For Visa Debit, "the Reserve Bank has calculated that the benchmark applying for the three years from 1 November 2006 is 12 cents. For a Visa Debit transaction of average size, the introduction of this Standard will result in a fall in the interchange fee from around 44 cents to under 12 cents." The bank has also suspended the "no surcharge" rule - allowing merchants to surcharge Visa Debit transactions if they so choose.