A former accountant saved $150 after cleverly discovering the 16.5 per cent surcharge for using contactless payment at her local mechanic.
Wendy Armitage saw the sign notifying her of the charge just as she was preparing to tap-and-go to pay $900 for an excessive car repair bill in Adelaide this month.
“To be honest, I was quite surprised,” Mrs Armitage told the alphabet.
Puzzled, she asked the business owner if the decimal point had been placed correctly and he assured her it was.
Realizing that using her credit or debit card to pay the $900 would result in an additional cost of $148.50, she inserted her card, which only added an additional 30 cents to the bill.
“I saved quite a bit of money to go out to dinner,” he said.
The Reserve Bank of Australia estimates that Australians shell out almost $1 billion in card fees each year.
This comes as the Albanian government announced on Tuesday that it was considering banning surcharges on debit cards due to excessive fees.
Adelaide woman Wendy Armitage (pictured) was shocked to see that paying for her $900 car repair overage would cost her almost $150 extra if she used tap-and-go card payment.
Armitage saw the sign notifying him of the charge just as he was preparing to use tap-and-go to pay $900 for an excessive car repair bill at a mechanic in Adelaide (file image)
The ban would begin in January 2026 but is pending a review of retail payments by the RBA, which is examining the costs merchants face for card payments and surcharge arrangements.
“In an environment of growing concerns about the cost of living, the costs of card payments and surcharges are increasingly attracting the attention of merchants and consumers,” he said.
Deputy Treasurer Stephen Jones told the ABC that consumers were rightly concerned about the fairness of such charges and that small businesses were often blamed for them.
“We don’t want small businesses to be the meat of the sandwich here,” he said.
However, Australian Banking Association director Anna Bligh said many businesses were charging surcharges for costs charged by banks and other payment providers.
“We know that many companies charge surcharges above what they are allowed to do,” he said.
Inserting a card into an EFTPOS machine typically costs the merchant less than 0.5 percent per transaction.
However, contactless payment with Visa and Mastercard can cost 0.5 to 1 percent each time for debit cards and 1 to 1.5 percent for credit cards.
Using contactless payments with Visa and Mastercard can cost 0.5 to 1 percent each time for debit cards and 1 to 1.5 percent for credit cards (file image)
On a $100 purchase, the average added cost is 28c for EFTPOS, 52c for the Mastercard network, 47c for Visa and a whopping $1.88 for digital payments provider Square.
While some larger businesses absorb these costs into the price of their goods and services, many smaller businesses include customers with banking fees.
Even some larger companies charge for using plastic.
While supermarkets Coles and Woolworths absorb fees into their prices, discount retailer Aldi charges a small standard fee on all card transactions.
