Reserve Bank of Australia

Current Regulations

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• Designations
• Standards and Access Regimes
• Undertakings

Designations

Made Under the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998

Under Section 11(1) of the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998, the Reserve Bank may designate a payment system if it considers that designating the system is in the public interest. This page provides links to current designations and to relevant media releases.

Designations under Section 11(1): Designated Payment Systems

System	Date of Gazettal	Media Release
MasterCard [PDF]	12 April 2001	2001-09
Visa [PDF]	12 April 2001	2001-09
Visa Debit [PDF]	23 February 2004	2004-01
EFTPOS System [PDF]	9 September 2004	2004-08
ATM System [PDF]	10 December 2008	2008-28

Standards and Access Regimes Imposed by the Reserve Bank Under the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act

Under the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998, the Reserve Bank has the power to impose an access regime on a payments system and to establish standards to be complied with by participants in the system. This page provides links to standards, interchange fee benchmarks calculated in accordance with standards, access regimes, exemptions from the interchange fee provisions of the Access Regime for the ATM System and relevant media releases.

Standards: determined under Section 18

Title	System	Commencement Date	Date of Gazettal	Media Release
Standard No. 2 Merchant Pricing for Credit Card Purchases [PDF]	MasterCard	1 Jan 2003	27 Aug 2002	2002-15
Standard No. 2 Merchant Pricing for Credit Card Purchases [PDF]	Visa	1 Jan 2003	27 Aug 2002	2002-15
Standard: The Setting of Wholesale ("Interchange") Fees in the Designated Credit Card Schemes (Compilation) [PDF]	MasterCard, Visa	1 Jul 2006	27 Apr 2006 Variation: 10 Dec 2008	2006-02 2008-28
Standard: The Setting of Interchange Fees in the Visa Debit Payment System (Compilation) [PDF]	Visa Debit	7 Jul 2006	7 Jul 2006 Variation: 10 Dec 2008	2006-04 2008-28
Standard: The ‘Honour All Cards’ Rule in the Visa Debit and Visa Credit Card Systems and the ‘No Surcharge’ Rule in the Visa Debit System [PDF]	Visa Debit	1 Jan 2007	7 Jul 2006	2006-04
Standard: The Setting of Interchange Fees in the EFTPOS System (Compilation) [PDF]	EFTPOS System	1 Jul 2006	27 Apr 2006 Variation: 10 Dec 2008 27 Nov 2009	2006-02 2008-28 2009-27

Interchange Fee Benchmarks

System	Commencement Date	Benchmark	Media Release
The Bank has waived the requirement to recalculate these benchmarks for the 2009/10 year. Under the current standards, these benchmarks will continue to apply until a scheduled recalculation in 2012/13.
EFTPOS System (Bilateral Fees) or PDF	1 Nov 2006	4–5 cents per transaction	2006-06
EFTPOS System (Multilateral Fees) or PDF	1 Jan 2010	12 cents per transaction	2009-27
MasterCard, Visa [PDF]	1 Nov 2006	0.50 per cent of transaction value	2006-08
Visa Debit or PDF	1 Nov 2006	12 cents per transaction	2006-08

Access Regimes: imposed under Section 12

System	Commencement Date	Date of Gazettal	Media Release
MasterCard [PDF]	23 Feb 2004	23 Feb 2004	2004-02
Visa [PDF]	23 Feb 2004	23 Feb 2004	2004-02
Visa Debit [PDF]	1 Sep 2005	22 Aug 2005	2005-10
EFTPOS System [PDF]	13 Sep 2006	13 Sep 2006	2006-06
ATM System [PDF]	3 Mar 2009	24 Feb 2009	2009-03

Access Charge Benchmark

System	Effective until	Benchmark
EFTPOS	31 December 2013	$87,776

Exemptions from Clause 11 of the Access Regime for the ATM System

Exemption Number	Description	Commencement Date
The Reserve Bank may grant an exemption to a participant in the ATM system from any or all of the requirements of clause 11 of the Access Regime for the ATM System in accordance with clause 16 of the Access Regime.
No 1 of 2009 [PDF]	Arrangement between Cashcard Limited and Bank of Western Australia Limited in relation to Commonwealth Bank of Australia.	16 Jul 2009

Undertakings

On several occasions, organisations have provided written undertakings to the Reserve Bank.

In August 2002, American Express and Diners Club provided the Reserve Bank with written undertakings to remove restrictions in their credit and/or charge card schemes preventing merchants from charging any fee or surcharge for the use of a card.

Following a corporate restructure, American Express provided the Reserve Bank with a revised undertaking in September 2004.

In July 2006, MasterCard provided the Reserve Bank with a written undertaking to voluntarily comply with the Debit Interchange Standard and the Honour all Cards Standard.