Update on availability and enablement of least-cost routing for merchants Data as at June 2023 (published August 2023)

This is an archived update on the availability and enablement of Least-cost Routing as at June 2023. For the most recent update, see: Update on availability and enablement of least-cost routing for merchants.

To provide greater transparency on the extent to which providers are supporting least-cost routing (LCR), the Bank has started publishing the tables below on LCR availability and take-up (enablement) across the major acquirers for ‘card-present’ (or in-person transactions) where a physical card is tapped (Table 1) and ‘card-not-present’ (or online transactions) (Table 2).

Card-present LCR

Table 1: Least-cost Routing of Card-present
Debit Card Transactions
Per cent of merchants, June 2023(a)
  Available to merchants Enabled for merchants(b)
Square 100 100
Suncorp Bank 100 63
Tyro 100 54
Fiserv 100 51
Commonwealth Bank 97 44
Westpac 100 32
ANZ Worldline 98 22
Adyen 100 21
National Australia Bank 100 15
Total 99 54

(a) Figures have been rounded to whole percentage points. Consequently, a value of 100 may still mean LCR is not available/enabled for every merchant of that institution. Figures exclude very large (strategic) merchants and merchants that supply their own payment terminals.
(b) For the avoidance of doubt, those institutions with the highest rates of LCR enablement do not necessarily provide merchants with the lowest overall payment costs.

Source: RBA

While LCR is now widely available to merchants for card-present transactions from a technical perspective, the functionality has not been enabled for many merchants. As at the end of June 2023, 54 per cent of merchants had LCR enabled for card-present transactions, with this share only increasingly marginally over the year.

Card-not-present LCR

Table 2: Least-cost Routing of Card-not-present
Debit Card Transactions
Per cent of merchants, June 2023(a)
Available to merchants Enabled for merchants(b)
Stripe 100 100
Fat Zebra 100 49
Fiserv 30 0
Commonwealth Bank 6 6
Adyen 3 3
National Australia Bank 0 0
Braintree 0 0
SecurePay 0 0
Suncorp 0 0
Tyro 0 0
Westpac 0 0
ANZ Worldline(c) n/a n/a

(a) Figures have been rounded to whole percentage points. Consequently, a value of 100 may still mean LCR is not available/enabled for every merchant of that institution. A value of 0 may mean LCR is available/enabled for some, but only a very small proportion, of merchants of that institution. Figures exclude very large (strategic) merchants and data relating to merchants where the listed institution only provides gateway services.
(b) For the avoidance of doubt, those institutions with the highest rates of LCR enablement do not necessarily provide merchants with the lowest overall payment costs.
(c) ANZ Worldline has not consented to the RBA publishing these data.

Source: RBA

The industry largely did not meet the RBA’s expectation that all acquirers, payment facilitators and gateways offer and promote LCR functionality to merchants in the online (card-not-present) environment by the end of 2022. Only a few providers have made LCR widely available to their merchants for online transactions as at the end of June 2023.

Background on Least-cost Routing

See: Least-cost Routing of Debit Card Transactions for more information, including details on what the Bank is doing on LCR.

Archived updates

The Bank has started publishing updates on LCR availability and enablement data every 6 months. For the first card-present LCR update as at December 2022 see: LCR Updates.