The last time Leah Doyle withdrew cash from an ATM was more than two weeks ago.
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Excessive credit card surcharges curbed
New laws banning excessive credit card surcharging will apply to large merchants from September.
Like an increasing number of Australians, cash features less and less in Ms Doyle's life and, until today, she has been paying for it.
"I use cards all the time. I usually don't get cash out, only if an [establishment] is cash-only."
Ms Doyle said, despite the convenience of using her card all the time, she is constantly frustrated by credit card surcharges she often faces.
"I think it's ridiculous, just for using a card. And you are not always aware of it, when you purchase something and then you get this surprise additional cost at the end."
For Ms Doyle and other Australian consumers like her, new laws banning excessive credit card surcharging from September 1 will be welcome news.
The legislation was passed by the Turnbull government in February, and will apply for large merchants from Thursday, reducing costs on goods such as air fares and concert and sporting tickets for consumers.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be responsible for enforcing the new regulations, which will also apply for small merchants from September 1 next year.
"The new law limits the amount a large business can charge customers for use of payment methods such as most credit and debit cards. Businesses can only pass on the permitted costs of the payment method such as bank fees and terminal costs," said ACCC chairman Rod Sims.
"The ACCC is aware that some event ticketing companies are intending to change their pricing practices from September 1, such that consumers will no longer be charged fees based on the payment method chosen."
Just how much a merchant can charge consumers will be defined by the Reserve Bank of Australia Payments System Board, which published its standard relating to surcharges in May.
As a guide, the RBA has advised that the costs to merchants of accepting payments by debit cards is about 0.5 per cent, by credit card 1-1.5 per cent, and for American Express cards 2-3 per cent. However, some merchants' costs might be higher.
"Any surcharge that a merchant chooses to levy must be specified as a percentage of the transaction value or, if set as a fixed amount, must not be exceed the cost of acceptance for the relevant transaction value," the standard states.
Qantas has already announced that a $100 domestic airfare, paid by a credit card, under the new laws, will now attract a surcharge of 1.3 per cent, or $1.30, a far cry from the 7 per cent surcharge that existed under its old regime.
"It's been a very long time coming," said Tom Godfrey, spokesman for consumer group Choice.
"The fact that excessive surcharging is going to be banned for large organisations is a massive win. Whether it's airlines, hotels, ticketing companies, consumers are going to see huge savings."
Consumer advocate and spokesman for the Surcharge Free campaign Christopher Zinn said the changes would help, but for most people it would not "make much of a difference".
"Qantas really let the cat out of the bag, when they said in a statement that the majority of Qantas customers will pay the same or less in fees than they do under the current system. I see it as a start, but certainly not the end of the issue."
Mr Zinn said businesses continued to argue there were costs to accepting credit cards, despite such costs having dropped significantly since 2003.
He pointed to the RBA's 2016 Review of Card Payments Regulations, which found average merchant service fees for MasterCard and Visa transactions have fallen by 68 basis points relative to their levels prior to 2003.
"The new regulation says a surcharge shouldn't be above the cost of acceptance, so that shouldn't put it much above 1 per cent. So for businesses, in many cases, it may be cheaper to accept card than cash."
A 2014 discussion paper by the RBA argued that the cost of cash transactions for a merchant is about 2.5 per cent, in time and wages.