Visa and Mastercard have now had to publish their Australian network fees (also known as scheme fees) and the rebates they pay back. The first quarter of data came out at the end of October, and it's worth a look wherever you operate.
Under the Reserve Bank of Australia's new rules, the card networks publish quarterly totals: gross fees charged to issuers and acquirers, rebates paid back, and transaction values, split by credit and debit, domestic and cross-border, card-present and online.
Until now, the RBA couldn't publish network-level figures because the international networks hadn't agreed to it.
For July to September 2026, across Visa and Mastercard:
- Gross network fees: about A$1.29 billion (US$880 million)
- Rebates paid back: about A$821 million (US$560 million)
- Net: about A$471 million (US$320 million), or roughly A$1.9 billion (US$1.3 billion) a year
Very few people outside the networks ever see numbers like these, and the patterns aren't unique to Australia. Over the next few posts I'll go through what stands out: who actually gets the rebates, and why cross-border is where network fees are highest.