Australia has a new national payment system based on QR codes and supported by the Reserve Bank of Australia:
AFR: This new way to pay – which will be enabled in Chemist Warehouse stores and online early next year – has been created by Waave. The start-up was acquired this week by Banked, another fintech based in the United Kingdom and backed by National Australia Bank and Citi. NAB and Banked are working together to offer Pay by Bank to NAB’s business customers. Payments will move across a domestic system known as the “new payments platform”, built by the major banks and RBA to compete with Mastercard and Visa. The new system includes PayTo – although NAB and Banked prefer the Pay by Bank branding – which allows merchants to extract funds straight from a customer’s bank account. Once enabled, customers won’t need a card, just their mobile phone. There’s no need to create an account or use another app. Rather, purchasers will take a picture of a QR code displayed on the payment terminal and authorise the payment by tapping a button on their handset.
The article sounds like Australian consumers are carrying only one card and that card defaults to credit and incurs a merchant fee. Personally I have a separate EFTPOS card and always use that. Flybys and all that nonsense really does not interest me. I use credit card only for large purchases, also for recurring payments because there is usually no alternative except direct debit authorisation, and actually in a lot of situations where the eftpos terminal is badly maintained and does not work properly so paywave, or it is badly positioned for accurate use like the in-store kiosk McDonalds and Burger King terminals just above knee height and recessed. So, actually I end up using credit/paywave frequently although I'd prefer to avoid it.