EU has created a system that bypasses payment processing services like visa or mastercard

[u/iconoclastic_glow]

In light of all the recent card surcharge drama, could this be something worth trying in Australia?

[u/ifndefx]

We need something similar in Australia.

[u/Ion_Source → u/ifndefx]

Like... EFTPOS?

[u/limplettuce_ → u/Ion_Source]

Can’t be used for credit cards though. Alternatively we could just stop being addicted to debt and loyalty points and cut up our credit cards

[u/Archon-Toten → u/limplettuce_]

That's fine, many of us use debit cards instead.

[u/limplettuce_ → u/Archon-Toten]

I believe the payments system is meant to already pick the lowest cost routing possible, so if you use a debit card then the merchant can direct it through eftpos for a cheaper fee

[u/virkendi → u/limplettuce_]

Except at Aldi I had to select EFTPOS on my phone first to avoid their surcharge, well I guess that's a thing of the past now though

[u/Basic_Hospital_3984 → u/limplettuce_]

I only just got a credit card to identify myself as over 18 on steam

[u/perfect_insanity93 → u/limplettuce_]

Already done my bro... "fuck credit"

[u/Practical-Skill5464 → u/limplettuce_]

We sort of already have started down that road. Looking at a study or two where at ~51% with people who have one (which is in a decline trend). That's probably a good thing but we'd have to go and look at what exactly has replaced it. Unfortunately I'd take it as guess that would probably be an increase in % of young people using buy now play later.

[u/iconoclastic_glow → u/Practical-Skill5464]

Yep, I’d bet anything it’s Afterpay and Zip and the like. In some ways I think they’re better than credit cards (well, Afterpay is - it just splits your payment in four, you can’t rack up an enormous debt and then pay a tiny minimum) but Zip can and will let you do that just like a credit card.

[u/Practical-Skill5464 → u/iconoclastic_glow]

I'd probably say it's about level in being a possible dept trap. Through seeing as Buy now Pay later are heavily targeted at young people who:

• haven't had as much finance experience
• are generally more impulsive
• don't have a lot of savings to dig them back out
• don't have a lot of savings to deal with life emergencies

I'd say they are considerably worse.

They both allow you to borrow beyond your means when used irresponsibly.

They both spring the trap months later.

The buy now pay later also drops the scary big number into 4 smaller ones which increases the likeliness you keep spending without realising you've outspent your ability to re-pay.

[u/Ion_Source → u/limplettuce_]

Doesn't work for the credit cards we have now. Back when eftpos was born there was an Aussie credit card provider called Bankcard, which was I believe eftpos compatible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankcard

[u/TheSilverSeraph → u/ifndefx]

Any old codgers like me remember Bankcard?

[u/ThrowRA_777777744456 → u/ifndefx]

Oath. We need this now.

[u/gpolk]

Yes we need similar, or even access to the EU one. Or both. Needs to be more competition in payment processing and diversification away from US businesses controlling it.

Apart from the more direct financial reasons, we we are seeing bullshit from America like their sanctioning of ICC judges over Trumps hissy fit over not winning a nobel prize which has seen ICC workers losing access to their cards, despite being issued by European banks. The US shouldn't have power over our finances like that (and don't come and at me that Trump did this for any other reason. Bullshit. He's a toddler. You don't sanction a court that you aren't subject to and no American has ever been convicted by).

[u/insanemal]

OK SO IM GOING TO SAY SOMETHING VERY CONTROVERSIAL BUT LET ME COOK.

The ban on transaction time surcharges is a good thing and the ATO following suit, while inconvenient now is even better.

Businesses large and small are going to be forced to raise prices, BUT also it incentives shopping around for the lowest rate.

Can you smell that free market economics?

Not only that the ATO saying NOPE means Millions of not BILLIONS of dollars will now not flow over the MasterCard/Visa networks.

That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is. ITS A HUGE DEAL. That money might be instantly removed from your available balance but it's not instantly available at the other end. There is interest to be earned and fees to be extracted in this process otherwise it could all be instant.

And the per transaction fees are bullshit anyway, people already pay to have a credit account, banks already pay for access to the VISA and MasterCard networks. Merchants already pay some kind of fees/expenses to have an EFTPOS machine.

It's credit processors getting greedy. This will fuck them up big time with market pressures.

[u/DB10-First_Touch]

We need to quietly divorce ourselves from every USA "toll booth" in our economy as quickly as we can.

[u/ohmyroots]

India in 2016, a decade back, eliminated surcharges by building UPI as open-access public infrastructure instead of relying on card networks. Replacing expensive hardware with universal QR codes and waiving merchant fees turned digital payments into a free, instant utility for over a billion people! It can be done. We just need the patience and will do it.

[u/sivvon → u/ohmyroots]

Indonesia has the same thing with QRIS. It's now expanding throughout Asia.

[u/zeefox79 → u/ohmyroots]

We have basically the same system here already. It's called the NPP and basically all payments made in Australia except for those using the Visa or Mastercard networks use it.

It underpins eftpos, PayTo, PayID/Osko, BPay etc, costs virtually nothing, and is available to every bank operating in Australia.

The QR code system also exists (there's one linked to your PayID, but it has just never taken off because there just wasn't a need. Payment terminals are virtually ubiquitous across all businesses. 

[u/National_Way_3344]

For anyone who doesn't know, Australia already owns EFTPOS, PEX, OSKO, NPP.

We don't need something like the US has, we need to put it front and centre or at the very least do least cost routing.

[u/projectkennedymonkey → u/National_Way_3344]

EFTPOS doesn't do credit, OSKO is for domestic account transfers, do the other two do credit?

[u/National_Way_3344 → u/projectkennedymonkey]

Ok but I'm in Australia and going to buy a coffee, why shouldn't all the transactions be forced onto EFTPOS.

Worse of all, we could do tap and pay EFTPOS too.

[u/zeefox79 → u/projectkennedymonkey]

These products are all built off the one underlying system, the NPP.

There's really nothing stopping banks offering a credit product over the NPP, but such a product would be limited to domestic transactions. They just default to Visa/Mastercard because of the broader international coverage of the network. 

[u/Street_Platform4575]

OSKO could be extended to use QR codes for pay to merchant. Though interestingly enough Mastercard Payment Gateway is used by some of the banks in Australia to interact with a lot of these payment schemes. I assume Visa also has the equivalent - so they can still take a clip - although smaller - of each transaction.

[u/zeefox79 → u/Street_Platform4575]

That's what EFTPOS is for 

[u/95beer → u/Street_Platform4575]

Definitely, the European system (WERO) is currently only person to person instant transactions using their phone numbers link, i.e. OSKO.

We just need to expand our system like they are planning to

[u/OtherwiseMirror8691]

We have PayTo network here now, we should allow QR codes at shops to pay via PayTo. Similar to how the Chinese pay for stuff at vendors with WeChat or Alipay

[u/zeefox79 → u/OtherwiseMirror8691]

That's literally what EFTPOS is.

[u/OtherwiseMirror8691 → u/zeefox79]

It’s not though.. eftpos requires terminal/nfc hardware and merchant pays card interchange fees. PayTo via QR requires just a printed QR code which allows instant account to account settlement with basically zero merchant fees

[u/zeefox79 → u/OtherwiseMirror8691]

Both systems would cost the same. EFTPOS is already extremely cheap for the business and obviously free for the customer. 

The QR code payment system is a great system, but it exists to service countries where only a proportion of businesses have access to traditional payment methods. 

Australia was WAY ahead of the curve with EFTPOS (it was literally the first such system in the world) so what you're proposing is a solution in search of a problem.

[u/Temporary_Spread7882 → u/zeefox79]

How do you ask for a specific EFTPOS payment to a specific account with low hassle, and no extra hardware?

[u/zeefox79 → u/Temporary_Spread7882]

PayID if you're paying someone else. Businesses can use PayID as well, they just rarely do in Australia because payment terminals are nearly ubiquitous so EFTPOS already exists for merchant payments. 

To be clear, all of these systems (PayTo, EFTPOS, PayID, Osko, BPay etc) are just different overlays on the same underlying infrastructure (the New Payments Platform, or NPP) and are controlled by the same non-profit company jointly owned by the 12 largest banks (plus the RBA). 

That's why I keep telling people that eftpos is the same thing as PayTo, they are literally just different user interfaces into the same system. 

[u/Temporary_Spread7882 → u/zeefox79]

I meant for use as a business: Setting up a customer for a “pay X amount to account Y” kind of payment without the hassle and delay of them having to dig through their online banking, enter the PayID manually, enter the amount manually, etc.
That’s what the QR codes have over regular PayID.

[u/Head-Nefariousness65 → u/OtherwiseMirror8691]

In Switzerland, there's a very popular payment system called Twint which works like this too. You can send and request money just via a QR code (or phone number, similar to PayTo), so it's super easy to make quick payments at markets, or sending money to a friend, etc. Even works online: the store just generates a QR code which has the amount and reference number built into it.

[u/outfang]

We have EFTPOS, maybe try using it? (you have to insert your card and select savings to deliberately route through eftpos. The real problem is the RBA or someone not making it easier, eg by forcing your bank to route that way. Also the fact that in spite of the fact eftpos is 10x cheaper, most businesses were charging the same as visa/mastercard routing.

[u/virkendie → u/outfang]

EFTPOS works over NFC too, you just need to select it before you tap, Coles automatically chooses eftpos for you on NFC too.

[u/ell0moto]

Tldr: it's their own payment network to settle transactions, to remove reliance on the US providers. The EU can do this because of their size.

[u/MeowManMeow → u/ell0moto]

We have some of the fewest banks and also some of the richest banks in the entire world (maybe some correlation between the two but that’s irrelevant for this).

If the big 4 implement a standard then it would get 70% alone.

[u/Ok-Educator9224 → u/MeowManMeow]

This wouldnt really work when the big 4 are over 50% owned by usa shareholders

[u/MeowManMeow → u/Ok-Educator9224]

I don’t see how that matters, I mean the US will complain and posture as always. If the government like EU, Brazil, China can all mandate alternate payment systems, we should too.

It’s part of our sovereignty to be independent, more so as USA goes to fascism.

[u/Nevyn_Cares → u/MeowManMeow]

Exactly. Time to stop just accepting stuff the US provides as the default. This goes for a lot of things, Windows/Intel/Google/Visa/Chrome/ etc.

[u/zeefox79 → u/ell0moto]

It's not about size, it's about cross border payments within the EU.

Australia already has a centralised payment clearing platform called the NPP that is used by all the local banks and is the foundation of EFTPOS, BPAY, Osko/PayID etc. Most domestic transactions already do not use the visa and MasterCard payment platforms. We don't have a cross border equivalent because frankly there hasn't been a need for one. 

Many EU countries already have similar systems for their internal banks, but what has been lacking is a intra-EU system that allows similar transfers between, say, a customer in Portugal and a customer in Denmark. 

[u/glordicus1]

We already have this? Its called eftpos

[u/projectkennedymonkey → u/glordicus1]

It's not for credit, so we're halfway there

[u/glordicus1 → u/projectkennedymonkey]

"Its not for spending money you dont have"

[u/zeefox79]

We already have domestic equivalents to this through the NPP and services built off it like EFTPOS and Osko/PayID

We don't really have enough small value cross border payments to justify a linked system. 

The US is so far behind on bank technology they shouldn't be used as an example for anyone

[u/CidewayAu]

You mean like EFTPOS or Bankcard?

[u/gibbsy81]

Mainly for bills/recurring payments although more companies should support Pay To which allows you to authorise and terminate payment agreements from your bank.

https://www.auspayplus.com.au/solutions/payto

[u/Draknurd]

Dammit this is gonna make overseas travel harder! I’m assuming there’ll be payment cards to fill the gap though

[u/Uncross-Selector]

It’s honestly just like PayTo which runs on NPP and is free

[u/liferedacted]

Indonesia has been using QRIS with some neighbouring countries

[u/Albeg2]

In Singapore they used QR codes for lots of things. I'm assuming that's cheaper also?

[u/ptpeace]

many business aswell people right now using PAYID these days when they don't have EFTPOS.

[u/Nevyn_Cares]

Shiat yeah. No need to have these middle players. Open source.

[u/thede3jay]

Yes, it's called eftpos Australia.... And many places force it because eftpos were too lazy to compete properly.

[u/Royal_Library_3581]

Russia already did this how many years ago with its MIR system?

[u/Hot-Government823]

We had one too.

It was called EFTPOS

[u/InternationalMix9944]

Basically no reason it should cost anything to spend digital money. If using cash there technically is the cost to make,maintain and store physical money but it's free so there should be a discount for tap and go

[u/Maleficent-Gene-7176]

I’m in Budapest and using my card only. Haven’t touched a florint.

Even for 1-3 aud purchases. Nobody is charging a surcharge!

[u/BeautifulRooster9313]

It's wild how hard Trump has fucked American hegemony.

The world is quickly waking up to how much we don't actually need them.

Time to fuck off AUKUS.

Aus, UK, Europe, Japan and Canada need to form an alliance and exclude the US and Israel.

[u/Horror-Breakfast-113]

yes we need something like this - to get off visa/mastercard

also their digital euro sound great as well

EU - build stuff for the people - USA build stuff to maximise profits

[u/Fart_Face_3098]

I'm pissed off with VISA and Mastercard because of their interfering with game sales on Steam. Australia needs our own system like this. Though I'm pretty sure all our politicians are owned

[u/CamperStacker → u/Fart_Face_3098]

You think that’s bad wait until it’s a government controlled system. At that point money basically becomes social credits - you will only by allowed to buy what they approve, and everything will be logged.

[u/nimbinValley → u/CamperStacker]

Cooker alert

[u/bootstrapmarketing]

Australian government is anti democratic and the politicians are corrupt

they wont bypass visa/mastercard GUARANTEED

[u/outfang → u/bootstrapmarketing]

We literally already have the alternative EFTPOS network. Moreover, it was the government that banned the surchages to help everyday people.

[u/Elseerian]

You do not want this shit. Don't let your hate for America blind you.
The government is already working on it.
It's called Project Acacia.

https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2025/mr-25-18.html

This is the gateway to China control system and social credit scores.
We're getting it all now.
Age verification.
Carbon credits.
Digital ID.
Central banking digital currencies.
Facial recognition everywhere.

Now is the time to say no to this before it is too late.
This is the WEF Agenda 2030 stuff tinfoil/cookers have been warning everyone about for years now.