Regional acquiring for Australia-facing merchants.
Cardflo provides payment orchestration for Australia-facing merchants. Our platform is designed to navigate the unique payment ecosystem and consumer behaviours within Australia.
Optimise transactions and enhance financial performance across the Australian market.
- Industry
- Australia-facing merchants
- Category
- Regions
- Cardflo support
- Yes
The overview
For merchants operating in the Australian market, the payment ecosystem is characterised by a strong reliance on established card schemes alongside high uptake of local digital payment rails.
Domestic debit transactions are often processed via the eftpos network, while credit transactions typically route through Visa and Mastercard. Navigating this landscape requires a nuanced approach to Merchant Category Codes (MCC) and BIN-level routing to ensure optimal authorisation rates.
Local issuers are known for stringent fraud prevention measures, which can lead to higher decline rates if transactions are not formatted correctly. Integrating with Australian acquirers allows businesses to benefit from local interchange rates and domestic settlement, avoiding the overhead of cross-border fees.
Furthermore, the regulatory environment governed by the Reserve Bank of Australia and ASIC necessitates strict adherence to data privacy and consumer protection standards.
Balancing these technical requirements with the growing demand for real-time payments through the New Payments Platform is essential for sustained growth in the region.
How it works
Local Acquirer Selection
The merchant establishes a relationship with an Australian-based acquirer to process transactions domestically.
This ensures that the Merchant Identification Number is recognised as local by Australian banks, reducing the likelihood of fraud flags and minimising the application of international scheme fees and currency conversion spreads during the settlement process.
BIN Routing Optimisation
The platform identifies the Bank Identification Number of the cardholder's issuer to determine the specific routing path. For Australian debit cards, this may involve choosing between the eftpos rail or the international scheme rail.
Effective routing manages the cost-to-authorisation ratio while ensuring the highest probability of a successful capture.
SCA and 3DS Implementation
While Australia does not follow PSD2 exactly, 3-D Secure is frequently employed to mitigate liability.
The transaction undergoes a risk assessment where 3DS is either bypassed or challenged based on the issuer's preference and the merchant's risk profile, aligning with local industry best practices for reducing chargeback exposure.
Domestic Settlement and Reconciliation
Funds are cleared through the local clearing house and settled into an Australian dollar bank account. The system reconciles successful authorisations against received funds, accounting for interchange fees and scheme fees specific to the Australian market.
This process ensures transparency in the net payout received by the merchant.
Why it matters
Reduction in Interchange Costs
Cross-border transactions incur significantly higher interchange and scheme fees compared to domestic processing. By utilising local acquiring, merchants can access the regulated domestic interchange caps in Australia.
This shift in the cost structure directly improves margins, especially for high-volume businesses where even a few basis points represent substantial annualised expenditure reduction.
Improved Authorisation Success
Australian issuing banks prioritise transactions that originate from within the domestic ecosystem. International transactions often trigger security blocks due to perceived higher risk.
Local processing provides the necessary data signals to the issuer that the transaction is legitimate, resulting in fewer false declines and a more consistent experience for the end consumer.
Regulatory notes
RBA Interchange Regulations
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) regulates interchange fees to ensure efficiency and competition. Current rules cap weighted average interchange fees for debit and credit cards.
Merchants must ensure their acquirer is transparently passing through these regulated rates. Failure to comply with local surcharging rules, which limit the amount a merchant can charge customers for using specific payment methods, can result in significant penalties from the ACCC.
Privacy Act Compliance
Businesses handling Australian consumer data must adhere to the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles. This includes strict requirements on how personal information and payment data are stored and transferred.
While PCI-DSS covers the security of card data, the broader privacy framework mandates specific disclosures and protections for all user identifiable information, influencing how KYB and AML checks are conducted and stored.
Use cases
E-commerce Retailers
Online stores targeting Australian residents can reduce cart abandonment by offering preferred local payment methods and ensuring that domestic cards are processed without triggering international bank fees for the customer.
Subscription and SaaS
For software providers with recurring billing, domestic processing reduces the churn caused by failed renewals. Local routing improves the success rate of subsequent Merchant Initiated Transactions through better issuer trust.
Travel and Hospitality
International travel entities can use local entities to process payments for Australian-based bookings. This helps in managing complex refund and retrieval requests within the local regulatory framework and scheme rules.
By the numbers
This range represents the typical increase in approval rates when switching from cross-border to domestic Australian acquiring, depending on the merchant sector and risk profile.
Industry data suggests that domestic interchange rates in Australia are substantially lower than unregulated cross-border rates, though actual savings vary by card type and transaction volume.
A significant majority of Australian consumers now utilise mobile wallets for point-of-sale and online transactions, necessitating support for digital tokens in any modern payment setup.
Related terms
Book a scoping call to see how Cardflo would set you up.
What's included.
- Domestic acquiring access to minimise international transaction fees and currency conversion costs.
- Support for eftpos routing to optimise processing costs for domestic debit transactions.
- Intelligent MID management for load balancing across multiple Australian merchant bank accounts.
- Real-time integration with the New Payments Platform for instant account-to-account transfers.
- Customised MCC mapping to align with Australian issuer risk appetites and scheme rules.
- Advanced 3-D Secure triggers to manage fraud while maintaining high checkout conversion.
- Automated account updater services for Australian-issued cards to support recurring revenue stability.
- Comprehensive reconciliation reporting for Australian dollar settlement and local tax compliance.
- Tokenisation of sensitive card data to reduce PCI-DSS compliance burden for local entities.
- Specialised dispute management to handle Australian-specific retrieval requests and chargeback cycles.
Talk to an acquiring specialist about your MID setup.
Common questions.
What unique payment methods should be supported for Australian consumers?
Apart from Visa and Mastercard, Australian consumers frequently use eftpos for debit transactions. Additionally, the New Payments Platform has enabled PayID for instant bank transfers.
BPAY remains a standard for bill payments. Supporting these methods can increase market penetration, as certain segments of the population prefer them over traditional credit card entry.
It is also important to consider the rise of Buy Now Pay Later services, which have seen significant adoption in the Australian retail sector.
How does domestic acquiring in Australia reduce merchant costs?
Domestic acquiring allows merchants to bypass the international interchange rates, which are significantly higher than the domestic rates overseen by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Scheme fees are also generally lower for domestic traffic.
By processing locally, merchants avoid the cross-border surcharge that acquirers typically apply. For the end customer, it also eliminates the 'International Transaction Fee' often charged by their own issuing bank, which can lead to customer dissatisfaction and complaints.
What is the impact of the eftpos network on payment processing?
eftpos is Australia's domestic debit card network. Many Australian bank cards are dual-badged with an international scheme like Visa or Mastercard.
Selecting the eftpos rail for processing these transactions can often be more cost-effective for the merchant. However, merchants must balance cost with functionality, as some online features might perform differently on the eftpos rail compared to the global schemes.
Routing logic can be used to prioritise the most efficient path for each transaction.
Are there specific fraud risks associated with the Australian market?
Australia has historically seen high levels of card-not-present fraud, leading to a robust industry-wide response. The Australian Fraud Mitigation Framework requires merchants to meet specific benchmarks for fraud rates, or they may face mandatory 3-D Secure requirements.
Monitoring chargeback ratios and implementing velocity checks tailored to Australian postal codes and IP ranges is a common practice. Merchants must be proactive in managing their risk profile to satisfy local acquirer requirements.
What is the significance of the New Payments Platform (NPP)?
The NPP provides the infrastructure for real-time payments in Australia. It allows for near-instant settlement 24/7.
For merchants, this means the potential for better cash flow and the ability to offer immediate service delivery upon payment. Features like PayID allow customers to pay using an email address or phone number, reducing the friction associated with entering BSB and account numbers.
It is an increasingly popular alternative to traditional card payments for high-value transactions.
How do Australian issuers handle soft declines versus hard declines?
Australian banks use soft declines for issues such as insufficient funds or temporary technical problems, allowing for subsequent retries. Hard declines occur for reasons like stolen cards or closed accounts, where retries are prohibited by scheme rules.
Implementing a sophisticated retry logic that distinguishes between these decline codes can recover a significant percentage of failed transactions. This is particularly relevant for subscription businesses where card-on-file data may go out of date.
Related industries.
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