Weekly Update: 10 October 2025

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Key News:

• The Senate Economics Committee sat for Estimates from Tuesday to Friday.
  • Treasury, ASIC, ACCC, APRA, RBA and the Productivity Commission appeared before the Committee.
  • This morning, Senators Sharma and Bragg questioned Michele Bullock about the RBA’s surcharging and interchange proposals.
• The ABA distributed a media release welcoming more progress to modernise payments system rules.

“…there are a lot of people who have credit cards in Australia, is there a risk that in changing the interchange fee arrangements – reducing the cap – that there will be a large number of people that will be paying higher fees, will be paying more for access to these services?”

–  Senator Andrew Bragg. Question to RBA Governor during Senate Estimates, 10 October 2025.

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Political Update:

• The House of Representatives sat from Tuesday to Thursday.
  • Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill passed its third reading.
• The Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association launched its “Let’s get this right, not rushed” campaign urging the Reserve Bank to reconsider the proposed surcharging ban.
• Treasury released exposure draft legislation for Regulation of Payment Service Providers.

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Policy Update:

• The ABA met with WA Treasury to discuss potential changes to the Home Building Contracts Act.
• ABA together with AFMA and COBA met with AUSTRAC to review the final AML/CTF Rules and discuss implementation options.
• ABA met with AP+ to discuss implementation of AML/CTF “travel rule” requirements.

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Economic Update

• This week, the RBA released its latest Retail Payments Statistics. These reveal that in August 2025, the total value of card purchases on Australian-issued cards was $93 billion, down 1.6% from July but up 7.4% over the year.
  • New Payments Platform transactions continued their rapid growth, rising 3.4% in value over the month and 20.6% year-on-year, while cheque use fell sharply (–18.0% year-on-year).
  • Average merchant fees remained lowest for EFTPOS debit (0.44%) and highest for American Express credit (1.35%).

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Regulatory Update

• ASIC released its 2024–25 annual report. 
• ASIC published the opening statement from Chair Joe Longo to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee Supplementary Budget Estimates hearing, 9 October 2025.
• APRA published the opening statement from Chair John Lonsdale to Senate Economics Legislation Committee – October 2025.

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Coming up next week:

• Data:
  • 14/10: Minutes of Monetary Policy Meeting (RBA)
  • 15/10: Building Activity, Australia (ABS)
  • 16/10: Labour Force, Australia (ABS)

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Upcoming Submissions:

Published submissions

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Events

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Selected Media

• AFR – PM steps in as Treasury models changes to $3m superannuation tax
• Reuters – New Zealand delivers jolt to frail economy with 50-bp rate cut, flags more easing
• AFR – Treasury considers small lender exemption from open banking
• Yahoo Finance – $1.5 billion cost millions of Aussies ‘prepared to accept’ as RBA surcharge ban looms
• The Australian – Why the jury is out on RBA interest-rate cuts despite its hawkish pivot

Warm regards,
The ABA Team

Weekly Update