News: Z1P Australia's central bank tells Buy Now Pay Later firms to drop surcharge ban

Australia's central bank on Friday said that buy now, pay later (BNPL) firms will no longer be able to prohibit merchants from passing-on surcharges for their services, levelling the playing field with banks and credit card providers.

Following a two-year review the Reserve Bank of Australia said it was now engaging with Treasury on "regulatory approaches" to enforce its decision - a move that has been fiercely opposed by the fast-growing industry.

While the central bank had previously flagged it would review the industry's no-surcharge rule again in the near future, it noted that BNPL services tend to be quite expensive for merchants to accept and it "has now concluded that there is a public interest case for BNPL providers to remove their no-surcharge rules."