Merchant Knowledge Centre
Plain-English guides to the October 2026 payment reforms — and what they mean for your costs.
The countdown to October 1: your merchant payments checklist
Two months out. Whether the surcharge ban is a compliance chore or a few thousand dollars of annual savings depends entirely on what you do between now and 30 September. Here is the complete checklist, in order, with the time each step takes.
Why travel agents may start refusing your credit card — and what it means for your points and perks
The surcharge ban has a strange side effect the headlines are only half-covering. Much of the coverage has focused on shrinking credit-card perks — fewer points, less lounge access, complimentary travel insurance under threat. But underneath that consumer story is a merchant one: for travel agents working on razor-thin commissions, a credit-card payment can now cost more than the sale earns them. Some are considering refusing credit cards altogether. Here's how the two halves connect — and why it matters whichever side of the counter you're on.
When "just absorb it" doesn't work: card fees for high-ticket, thin-margin businesses
Most surcharge-ban advice assumes you can absorb the cost or quietly build it into your prices. For a cafe adding 30 cents to a coffee, that's true. But for businesses selling big-ticket items on thin margins — travel, jewellery, furniture, large trade invoices, events — the maths can break down completely. On a high-value credit-card sale, the acceptance fee can be larger than the profit on the sale itself. This guide is about what to do when absorbing the fee isn't a rounding error, but the difference between a sale and a loss.
A beloved Melbourne cafe is closing on 1 August. Here's the part every merchant should pay attention to.
Two Franks, the Coburg cafe and general store run by sisters Angie Markou and Chryssie Swarbrick, announced to its 18,000-strong Instagram community last week that it will trade for the last time on Saturday 1 August. SmartCompany has since spoken with both founders about why. The reason wasn't one thing. It was everything, arriving at once — and one item on that list has a date on it, applies to nearly every merchant in the country, and is the only one you can actually do something about before it lands.
Shift4 and Tyro merchants: how to calculate your real costs after the surcharge ban
You know the surcharge model ends on 1 October. The harder question is: what will you actually pay from that day? Neither Shift4 nor Tyro has published a standard post-October rate card for surcharge-model merchants as at June 2026 [3] — so here is a defensible way to forecast your cost yourself, in four steps, using numbers you already have.
On a 'Zero Cost' EFTPOS plan? Prepare for an October bill shock
Around 20,000 Australian merchants run terminals where the monthly merchant fee is roughly $0 — because their customers pay it through a surcharge on every tap [3]. On 1 October 2026 that model is banned under the card scheme rules. If your terminal is Shift4 (formerly SmartPay) Zero Cost or Tyro's "No Cost EFTPOS", this article is your deadline notice.