What’s changing?
Visa and Mastercard have made recent changes to their Interchange Rates which came into effect 1 June 2019 in Australia.
Additionally, Visa will remove Debit and Prepaid Card Not Present (CNP) Industry fee program categories (eg. Government, Education, Insurance and Supermarkets). All CNP transactions will attract a standard fee program of 0.22% incl. GST. This change will come into effect 20 July 2019 in Australia. Debit and Prepaid Card Present categories will see a rate reduction.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR me?
Interchange Rate structure changes impact only Interchange Plus pricing merchants and your cost of accepting payments via these card types may change.
1 June 2019
Changes to the Visa Domestic Credit Rates will come into effect on 1 June 2019 will have the following impact to merchants:
- Business Classic is being adjusted down from 0.770% (incl. GST) to 0.759% (incl. GST)
- Business Platinum is being adjusted down from 0.858% (incl. GST) to 0.825% (incl. GST)
- Consumer Rewards is being adjusted down from 0.770% (incl. GST) to 0.660% (incl. GST)
Changes to the Mastercard Domestic Credit Interchange Rates will come into effect on 1 June 2019 will have the following impact on merchants:
- Commercial is being adjusted down from 0.70% (incl. GST) to 0.69% (incl. GST)
- Tokenised Online is being adjusted down from 0.50% (incl. GST) to 0.18% (incl. GST)
- Consumer Premium Hugh Spend is being adjusted down from 0.71% (incl. GST) to 0.67% (incl. GST)
20 July 2019
Visa will remove Debit and Prepaid Card Not Present (CNP) industry fee program categories (e.g. Government, Education, Insurance, Supermarkets). All CNP transactions will attract the standard fee program of 0.22% (incl. GST)
These changes only apply to Debit & Prepaid interchange hierarchies for transaction that occur in Australia.
The Debit & Prepaid Industry Fee Program (e.g. Government, Education, Insurance, Supermarkets) will remain for Card Present (CP) transactions only and rates will decrease. See below
- All these Categories will be adjusted from AUD 0.066 (incl. GST) to AUD 0.055 (incl. GST)
WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
You won’t need to make any changes. The interchange fee will automatically be applied to Visa and Mastercard transactions after 1 June 2019 and 20 July 2019.
How will this affect my Cost of Acceptance?
Depending on the card mix acceptance merchants could see an impact to their Cost of Acceptance.
The VISA changes effective July 20 have no bearing on Visa Credit transactions for either CP or CNP.
- CNP debit and prepaid transactions will go from AUD 0.066 to 0.22%. Depending on the transaction value being process you may see an increase or decrease in interchange fee. CP debit and prepaid transactions by merchants in the industry fee program will see a decrease to interchange fees.
The new interchange rates will be applied to your merchant statements and will show your cost of acceptance based on the new rates.
HOW CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT INTERCHANGE FEES?
Interchange Fees information is published by the schemes online and information is to be updated 1 March 2019
These rates can be found on the links below:
Visa
Visa interchange on Domestic Transactions in Australia
Mastercard
Want to know more?
Visit our interchange categories definitions page for more information.
