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Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) CEO Dean Long has taken a swipe at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) for declining an invitation to face travel industry members over its controversial credit card surcharge reforms.<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking at ATIA\u2019s Beyond Borders conference in Melbourne today, Long criticised the RBA\u2019s decision-making and accused the regulator of relying on flawed data and would push up prices for consumers, including those who don\u2019t pay by card.<\/p>\n The ban on surcharging card payments was the outcome of the RBA\u2019s review of merchant card payment costs and surcharging. The RBA briefed stakeholders, including ATIA, on its decision on 31 March 2026. The ban took effect on 1 October 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did invite the RBA to come here today. They declined. Not sure why,\u201d Long told delegates.<\/p>\n He contrasted the RBA\u2019s absence with American Express, which attended despite holding a different position on surcharging.<\/p>\n \u201cWould have been very easy for AmEx not to turn up today,\u201d he said, praising its willingness to engage with the industry.<\/p>\n Long then took a cheeky swipe at the RBA\u2019s Martin Place headquarters, which has undergone renovations following the discovery of asbestos.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want the RBA to leave Martin Place, you\u2019ve got to find some asbestos because they won\u2019t come and talk to anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Long challenged the RBA\u2019s claim that just 16 per cent of Australian transactions attract a surcharge, arguing that the figures did not reflect consumers\u2019 everyday experiences.<\/p>\n He recalled attending a closed RBA briefing where he asked approximately 30 attendees whether they had avoided paying a surcharge on recent purchases.<\/p>\n \u201cNot a single hand went up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Long claimed the data underpinning the reforms was supplied by major banks and card providers with commercial interests in the outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cBad data leads to bad decisions, which leads to bad consumer outcomes,\u201d he said. \u201cThe RBA has unfortunately had a shocker on this instance.\u201d<\/p>\n The RBA also provides the merchant facility for the Australian Taxation Office, its largest client. The ATO has since scrapped accepting credit card payments, including from travel trade SMEs. Long said that in any other business, a division whose decision cost the company its largest client would probably see someone lose their job.<\/span><\/p>\n Elsewhere in his address, Long unveiled ATIA\u2019s new website and data dashboards, providing members with access to airline sales, passenger movements and aviation capacity information.<\/p>\n He also highlighted advocacy victories on travel insurance and the aviation ombudsman scheme, alongside ongoing work with Qantas on New Distribution Capability (NDC).<\/p>\n The association is making the dashboards available free to members, as part of its push towards more data-driven industry decision-making.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n kabarsula SLOT <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) CEO Dean Long has taken a swipe at the Reserve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Bad data leads to bad decisions\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
ATIA unveils new industry data<\/strong><\/h2>\n