Australia mulls requiring banks to offer lower-cost debit payment systems: report

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has written to regulators to allow businesses to choose cheaper domestic systems.

Australia’s treasurer has written to the central bank to possibly mandate large and medium-sized banks, as well as debit card issuers to allow businesses to choose cheaper domestic payment network systems for their debit payments, reported Reuters.

In a letter dated 30 August and addressed to the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Josh Frydenberg threw the government's weight behind "least-cost routing", which would allow businesses to choose cheaper domestic systems instead of the more expensive Visa and Mastercard networks.

Business groups had been advocating for the RBA to require multi-network cards that could process payments via the lowest-cost networks.

"Least-cost routing means providing small business access to cheaper domestic debit payments schemes... rather than requiring transactions fees to only go through the far more expensive international providers," National Retail Association CEO Dominique Lamb said in a statement.

Here’s more from Reuters.