From October 1, the surcharge conversation changes, but the underlying cost of accepting payments doesn't. For businesses, managing that cost increasingly comes down to payment mix: which methods customers use, and how often. PayTo has an obvious place in that mix. The less obvious part is what it takes to get customers actually choosing it.
What Makes PayTo Cost-Effective
PayTo charges a flat fee per transaction rather than a percentage of the payment amount. Which means the economics work hardest particularly when payments are larger, whether for bills, insurance premiums, or other large payments or purchases. This is where it earns its place in the payment mix.
It's built on Australia's New Payments Platform, the same banking infrastructure behind instant bank transfers. Customers authorise it directly in their own banking app, carrying the same security their bank already provides, so there's no need for paperwork and no card details to store.
Availability isn't the same as adoption
Here's where the effort often gets stopped short. A business enables PayTo, adds it to the payment page, and considers the job done. But making a payment method available and making it the method a customer actually chooses are two different outcomes, and only one of them changes anything.
Consumer research we conducted with Fifth Quadrant makes the gap concrete. Awareness of PayTo is still relatively low, but once it's explained, intent to use it jumps sharply, and rises even further among younger bill payers. The appetite is already there. What's missing isn't interest. It's the opportunity to act on it, at the point where it counts.
Source: Fifth Quadrant consumer research · Nov 2025
What actually drives adoption
There are three drivers that help make the difference between simply having PayTo enabled and customers actually using it.
Visibility at the moment of decision
A customer doesn't compare payment options in the abstract. They choose in the moment they're looking at what they owe and deciding what to do about it — a bill, a reminder, a portal, a contact centre call. If PayTo isn't visibly and clearly presented at that exact point, it isn't really part of the decision, regardless of whether it's technically available somewhere else in the journey.
Low friction, every time
The easiest option wins by default. A payment journey that sends someone back to log into a portal, dig out a reference number, or call in adds friction before a customer has even considered how to pay. And friction doesn't just change what they choose, it's often what causes them to delay the payment altogether, or abandon it partway through. A journey that leads straight to a simple, one-tap experience keeps the payment moving, and keeps every option, PayTo included, genuinely in the running.
Consistency across channels
Customers pay through whichever channel is in front of them at the time — email, SMS, a portal login, a contact centre call. If PayTo is visible and easy in one of those and absent or buried in another, adoption depends on which channel a customer happens to use that month. Consistency is what turns a good result in one channel into a real shift in behaviour overall.
Same PayTo placement, every channel. And cards and wallets remain available at each one too.
Understanding your own starting point
Most businesses already track payment method mix: it's a standard part of understanding cost base and spotting trends. What's less common is treating that mix as something that can be actively influenced, rather than a number to monitor and report on.
Whether or not you've surcharged, that shift in thinking is where the opportunity sits: payment mix isn't just a reflection of customer behaviour, it's something a business has real ability to shape.
For businesses that have surcharged, the impact is more immediate and the case more urgent. And for those that haven't, it's still a cost worth managing deliberately rather than by default. Either way, the specifics of how a business tracks and acts on its own mix will vary, and that's outside what this guide sets out to cover.
Where this leaves businesses
The RBA's ban removes a business's ability to recover card costs through a surcharge. It doesn't remove the underlying cost of accepting payments, and it doesn't automatically shift how customers choose to pay. That part still has to be built: deliberately, across every channel a customer might use, with the friction taken out of the path.
If you're working through what that looks like for your organisation, we'd welcome the conversation.