Two-thirds of Visa and Mastercard transactions in Australia are now tokenized. That makes how the networks price tokens a much bigger question for issuers and acquirers than it used to be.
That's from the new Australian network data for July to September 2026. By transaction count, 66% of domestic transactions were tokenized, including 74% of online debit and prepaid and 61% of online credit. Merchants can tokenize stored payment credentials without customers changing how they check out, so adoption can grow independently of mobile wallet use.
Tokens were sold as a security upgrade, and they are one. They also come with their own pricing, and it works differently on each side of the transaction.
For issuers, tokenized online transactions often qualify for lower interchange. Published schedules in the US, Canada and Australia include tokenized rates for many online categories, and lower interchange means less revenue for the issuer. There can also be token-related network fees. On the other side, tokens tend to lift approval rates and reduce fraud.
For acquirers, lower interchange on tokenized transactions reduces cost, but network fees push the other way. In the US, Visa and Mastercard have bundled token-related services, along with other services, into per-authorization fees on applicable card-not-present transactions, and Visa now charges a fee on approved in-store token authorizations. Merchant pricing should account for both.
The net effect depends on transaction mix, fee eligibility and fraud performance, so it differs by institution. Practically speaking, token-related interchange and network fees deserve to be modeled explicitly in the cost of a transaction, not left inside a blended number. Australia's new disclosures offer a useful look at a market where tokens are already the norm, and Visa reports that more than half of its transactions globally are now tokenized.
Part 6 of a short series on what Australia's new network fee rules and data show. Earlier posts are linked in the comments.