The surcharge disappears.The cost doesn’t.

The RBA says card surcharges are disappearing from October next year. Sounds great for consumers at first glance. No more annoying “1.9% surcharge” appearing at checkout. But there’s a much bigger conversation coming.

If your cost of acceptance is 1.9%, and most of your revenue comes through Visa / Mastercard, that’s not a 1.9% reduction in profit. For a lot of businesses, that could be closer to a 10–20% hit to net profit depending on margin.

Businesses are not just going to absorb that. So what happens next? Prices go up? Cash discounts appear everywhere? Minimum spends return? Some businesses stop accepting certain payment methods altogether?

I think the real story here isn’t the surcharge disappearing. It’s the behavioural change that follows.

The RBA wants a smoother, more transparent experience for consumers, which makes complete sense. But if businesses simply bake the cost into higher prices across the board… did consumers actually save money, or did the fee just become less visible?

Curious what other business owners are thinking about doing here.