Businesses across the banking and financial sector “should be mindful that the ACCC will not hesitate to take action where necessary to protect competition including through court action” the ACCC chief Gina Cass-Gottleib told an industry conference yesterday.

“Right now, we are preparing for trial in our case against Mastercard which is set down for March 2025.

“In this case, we allege that Mastercard offered discounts to more than 20 major retail businesses on the condition they committed to processing all or most of their Mastercard-eftpos debit card transactions through Mastercard rather than the Eftpos network.

“We allege that this had the purpose of substantially lessening competition in the supply of debit card acceptance services by deterring businesses from using the only alternative network, eftpos, even where it was the least cost.”

The trial is scheduled to take six weeks.

Cass-Gottleib also reflected on the hot debate on card surcharging.

The ACCC has received $2.1 million of new funding for the balance of this year and the next “to tackle excessive card surcharging. The ACCC already has powers to take action against merchant surcharging that exceeds the merchant’s cost of card acceptance. 

“The Reserve Bank of Australia’s first consultation paper released this month from its Review of merchant card payment costs and surcharging highlights just how complex this issue is within Australia’s payments system.

“We have worked with the RBA on card surcharges over many years and will continue to collaborate on solutions that support both consumers and businesses while ensuring fair competition in the payments system.”