Surcharge

I'll give you more details on that in a moment.

And SurgeHedge no more, or at least allegedly.

The RBA's ban on credit card and debit card surcharges coming into force from today.

But if you're like me, you've probably noticed that you're already paying for things.

Costs of goods seem to have already gone up in anticipation.

So after 23 years, why has the RBA decided to stop businesses from passing on the surcharge?

Well, I think they realize that it's achieved the objective they set out to, and also it was being compromised and misused.

Surcharging became something that many merchants, particularly small and medium-sized merchants, use as a nice little extra bit of income for them, really.

And I think many of the surcharges we were asked to pay were higher than the cost of doing that transaction.

Well, it is interesting, too, because if you have a credit card, you know you already pay an annual fee to use them, and then you're paying the surcharge on top for that purchase.