Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the weekend I spoke to James. Like 75 per cent of all Australians, he prefers card over cash to pay for things. Like many, he made the transition away from cash during the pandemic. At our local pub he bought a burger and a few beers, and in a few hours he'd spent 85c on surcharges. James reckons he spends over $200 a year on these fees. That's money he's earnt, money he's saved and money he forgoes just so he can pay for things.

With 75 per cent of all Australians using digital payments at the check-out, James is not alone. Canstar analysis from early 2024 shows that, collectively, Australians are paying up to $4 billion to access their own money. I think that Australians have had enough of this rort. Being charged to access your own money simply must change. Card providers, merchant and technology providers and the banks are having a laugh, scraping $4 billion from our bank accounts to provide an essential service that costs less to operate and maintain than its fee-free non-digital alternatives.

I just want to make it very clear that, as a former small-business owner, I do not begrudge any small business for passing on these exorbitant fees. The business I used to own and run paid over $1,000 a month to accept digital payments. With small-business owners grappling with rent, electricity and other overheads, absorbing thousands of dollars in fees is just not feasible. More and more are passing this charge on, and that's fair enough.

But I think that Australians have now begun to ask themselves: why are we even being charged these fees at all? Paying for things used to be free, and, for those of us who still use cash, it still is. Cash should always be an option for those who use it, and it should always be free to use. But we're in 2024 and we have this upside-down system where we are being slugged $4 billion a year to use the easiest, safest and most efficient way to pay. During the pandemic we were all asked to stop using cash, and many of us, me included, made that habit stick. I don't carry cash on me now and nearly exclusively use my digital wallet. It's safe and it costs banks and businesses a fraction of what cash would cost to administer, yet, perversely, consumers are being charged to use the cheapest form of payment and, quite frankly, that does my head in.

As I have delved deeper into this, I've found that other countries have fee-free digital payments, but here in Australia it's not someone that is offered through our merchant or software providers. The most scandalous thing about this all is that fee-free payment technology exists in Australia today. The New Payments Platform owned by banks and big retailers and the RBA currently provides fee-free bank-to-bank fund transfers in an instant. Be it through Osko, PayID, scanning a QR code or new rules to open up Apple or Google wallets, unlocking the potential of the New Payments Platform is the answer to this $4 billion nightmare. But you have to ask yourself: why isn't it that small businesses aren't being offered this solution right now? You see, for every card issued by banks, the card providers pay them a commission. Then, every time that that card is used, the card providers and the banks get a cut of the fees we pay along the way. I'd put it to parliament that these kickbacks are a part of the reason why consumers are not getting fee-free digital payments through the New Payments Platform today.

Under my questioning last week the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Michele Bullock, admitted that these kickbacks were a concern and will be looked at as part of a series of reviews into the surcharging and payment system. That is a good start. I remember when sending a text message used to cost 25c per message. Sending a text message is now free. That same fee-free revolution needs to happen at the check-out. With our big banks posting record profits off the back of a cost-of-living crisis, the fact that card providers and the banks charge us $4 billion a year is a rort and something that needs to end.

Next week at public hearings I'll be pushing the banks to explain why they're holding fee-free digital payments back. I'll also be working with the RBA and government to get essential payments reform implemented. Together, we need to show the parliament, the RBA and the big banks that we've had enough.

House adjourned at 20:00

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Payne ) took the chair at 15:59.