Australian issuers were charged more in network fees on 8% of their cardholders' spending than on the other 92%.
That 8% is cross-border. From July to September 2026, Australian issuers were charged A$457 million (US$311 million) in gross Visa and Mastercard network fees (also known as scheme fees) on cross-border transactions, against A$397 million (US$270 million) on all domestic transactions. In gross terms, cross-border fees ran about 2.3% of spending, compared with about 0.18% domestically.
Most of it wasn't travel. About two-thirds of that cross-border spending was online, with overseas merchants, so this part of the cost grows with e-commerce, not just with travel.
The numbers will differ in your market, but the question is the same anywhere: do you know the true cost of a cross-border transaction compared with a domestic one? For issuers, that goes well beyond the network fee line. It feeds directly into how you size your rewards program and set your overall card strategy.
Acquirers see the same pattern from the other side. In Australia, foreign-issued cards were about 4% of acquirers' volume and about a third of their network fees. On those transactions, network fees came to about 1.6% of value, nearly as much as interchange. Merchant pricing that only accounts for interchange on foreign cards is missing a large part of the cost.
Part 5 of a short series on what Australia's new network fee rules and data show. Earlier posts are linked in the comments.