As our payments partner, we wanted to make sure you have everything you need to navigate the upcoming Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) regulatory changes.

We will reach out in the coming months with updates to your agreements, terms and conditions, and minimum statement requirements  to reflect the revised RBA standards. We will also be updating the relevant sections of our agreements to reflect the new no-surcharging environment.

Key Changes

To prepare for the upcoming changes, we recommend taking the following actions ahead of 1 October 2026: 

Contractual & Agreement Updates

• If you have agreements with your merchants, review and update these agreements to reflect the zero-surcharge mandate, and ensure any new agreements with merchants state that card surcharging is prohibited (unless expressly permitted by law).

We’ll be in touch with our updated contracts as soon as they are available to help you make these changes.

System & Terminal Configurations

• Update your payment applications, POS integrations, and billing systems to disable surcharging capabilities for Australian transactions by default.
• Ensure any automated surcharging features relating to card payment surcharge built into your software or payment gateways are disabled by default.

Merchant Communication & Enforcement

• Proactively reach out to your merchants so they are aware of the changes.
• Advise merchants to remove all customer facing surcharging signage.
• Be prepared to monitor, investigate, and enforce compliance if a merchant is found to be continuing surcharging practices post-deadline.

Merchant Statement & Transparency Requirements

The RBA is amending its transparency standards under clause 7.2 of Standard No. 3 of 2016. These updates shift the focus from calculating a "cost of acceptance" to providing highly detailed reporting on card transaction compositions.

As a Wpay payment partner, you have an obligation to ensure these reporting requirements are met for all merchants.

• Update monthly merchant statements to include the minimum data elements outlined by the RBA. You can view the RBA’s example Merchant Statement template here.
• Reporting must cover eftpos, Mastercard, and Visa, though depending on your payment acceptance you may want to include data from other card networks such as American Express or UnionPay International.
• A transition period for the Merchant Statement runs from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027. Full compliance with the new format is mandatory for the first full billing month after 1 April 2027.