RBA accused of kicking own goal over surcharge ban

Some businesses are already building the cost of card transactions into their prices following the surcharge ban on October 1. A tracker of more than 1,500 cafés by smallflatwhite.com found 17 per cent have increased the price of a flat white since the reforms. For those that did, the typical increase was 50 cents, or almost 10 per cent. The chief executive of Australian Restaurant & Cafe Association, Wes Lambert says many of his members have increased their prices. He says the “RBA kicked an own goal in this. They should have known better that inflation was going to remain pesky and that this ban would come online during a cost-of-living crisis.”
The Reserve Bank was contacted for comment.

Former RBA insider and Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis expects the inflationary impact to be temporary. She said, “previously surcharges were imposed to reflect the cost of accepting certain types of payment, that’s now been bundled into the price, so some businesses have increased their prices, but that’s a one off.”

It’s not just the hospitality sector impacted by the RBA’s reforms. Macquarie Bank’s DEFT platform has stopped accepting credit and debit card payments – affecting some renters who may have relied on credit cards to manage their cash flow.
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