TLDR
NAB is lifting purchase rates on three rewards cards from 20.99% to 22.49% p.a. and scrapping the Rewards Signature fee waiver, with the changes taking effect on 1 October. The NAB Qantas Rewards Premium card's base earn rate drops from 0.75 to 0.5 points per dollar on the first $3,000 of monthly spend, a 33% reduction. Westpac is scaling back complimentary insurance on its credit cards in response to the Reserve Bank of Australia's ban on card surcharges. The RBA framed the surcharge ban as a win for consumers at the checkout, but the cost is landing on cardholders through thinner points and higher annual fees.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The rate and fee changes, card by card
The number that matters most to anyone carrying a balance: NAB is lifting the variable purchase rate on the Rewards Platinum, Rewards Signature and NAB Qantas Rewards Premium cards from 20.99% to 22.49% p.a., effective 1 October 2026verifiedVerified Source: nab.com.au.[1] A 150 basis point increase looks modest in isolation, but on a $5,000 revolving balance it adds roughly $75 a year in interest charges before compounding kicks in.
The fee restructure on the Rewards Signature card is the sharper move. As at 25 July 2026, the card charged $35 a month, a figure that disappeared when cardholders spent $5,000 or more in a statement period.[1] From October, that waiver is gone, replaced by a flat $395 a year with no mechanism to avoid it. A frequent spender who previously paid nothing for the card is now looking at a fixed annual cost regardless of how much they put through it.
The Qantas Rewards Signature card for new customers was already carrying an annual fee of $420 per annum as at 25 July 2026.[1] NAB's rewards-tier cards are now clustering around the $395 to $420 annual cost range while simultaneously delivering fewer points per dollar spent.
The earn rate cut that changes the Qantas card maths
For points chasers, the more consequential change is to the earn rate. The NAB Qantas Rewards Premium card's base earn rate is dropping from 0.75 to 0.5 points per dollar on the first $3,000 of monthly spend, a 33% reduction to the tier where most everyday transactions landverifiedVerified Source: nab.com.au.[1] That $3,000 threshold is where groceries, petrol and utility bills typically accumulate for a household, making it the highest-volume earn band for the average cardholder.
Run the arithmetic on a cardholder spending exactly $3,000 a month. Under the old structure they collected 2,250 Qantas points; from October they collect 1,500. Over a year that is 9,000 fewer points, worth somewhere between one and two short-haul domestic flights depending on seat availability and redemption timing. The annual fee stays the same or rises while the reward for holding the card has narrowed.
Interchange fees, paid by merchants to card-issuing banks each time a card is swiped, are the funding engine behind points programs. Lower the cap on those fees and the revenue available to subsidise rewards falls with it, leaving banks a straightforward choice: absorb the margin compression or pass it to cardholders through lower earn rates, higher fees or both. NAB has chosen both.
What Westpac is changing and why it will not say it is linked
Westpac's changes sit in a different category. From 1 October 2026 the bank will reduce complimentary insurance offered on its credit cards in response to the RBA's surcharging ban.[2] Westpac said it would add some perks alongside the insurance cuts, though the detail on what those perks are remains thin in public disclosures.
Asked about the connection to the interchange cap, Westpac told customers: "We're reviewing the RBA's update and will work through what it means for our customers. We'll share updates, so you know what to expect."[3] The timing does the confirming regardless: changes landing on 1 October, the same date the RBA reforms take effect, are not coincidental.
Complimentary insurance, specifically travel insurance and purchase protection bundled with rewards cards, has always been an expensive cardholder benefit to underwrite. Trimming it reduces visible value without requiring a direct conversation about points earn rates or interest charges.
ANZ and the industry picture
NAB and Westpac are not acting alone. Canstar recorded six providers that had adjusted their rewards card offerings ahead of the RBA's 1 October deadline.[4] ANZ is among those that have signalled changes, though the specifics of its adjustments were not confirmed in detail at the time of writing. The pattern across the sector is consistent: purchase rates up, earn rates down, fee waivers removed.
This is a structural repricing of Australian credit card rewards programs in response to a regulatory change that removes two of the three revenue lines that made those programs commercially viable. The third revenue line, interest charges on revolving balances, remains intact, which explains why purchase rates are going up at the same moment earn rates are going down.
The RBA's said logic and what it means at the checkout
The Reserve Bank of Australia's Payments System Board concluded on 31 March 2026 to remove surcharging on debit, prepaid and credit cards and to lower interchange fee caps, with most changes taking effect from 1 October 2026verifiedVerified Source: rba.gov.au.[5] The Reserve Bank of Australia Payments System Board said that "Removing surcharging would make card payments simpler, more transparent and increase competition among payment service providers."[5]
The logic holds at the merchant level. Consumers paying by card at a cafe or a tradesperson will no longer see a 1% to 2% surcharge added at the terminal, and for a family spending heavily on cards, eliminating those surcharges produces genuine savings across hundreds of transactions a year.
The transfer of cost is not neutral across cardholders, though. Someone who carries no balance, earns strong points and previously benefited from a fee waiver is net worse off under the new regime. The population that comes out ahead is the one that mostly pays by debit or cash and was absorbing merchant surcharges without the offsetting benefit of points accumulation.
What cardholders should do before October
The practical question is whether the total cost of ownership on an affected card still makes sense after the changes land. That calculation requires three inputs: the annual fee, the effective earn rate on realistic monthly spend, and the interest rate applied to any balance carried between statements. All three are moving unfavourably on the NAB cards in scope.
For the Rewards Signature card specifically, the removal of the fee waiver changes the break-even point significantly. A cardholder who was previously spending $5,000 a month and paying nothing for the card now faces a guaranteed $395 annual outlay, and whether the points earned at the new rates justify that fee depends on how efficiently they redeem them.
The October changeover is a legitimate trigger to reassess. Running the numbers using the new earn rates and annual fees, rather than those on a product disclosure statement issued before July 2026, is the right starting point, and several comparison tools allow cardholders to model total annual cost against expected spend patterns before the changes lock in on 1 October 2026.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Which NAB credit cards are affected by the October 2026 changes?
What is happening to the NAB Rewards Signature fee waiver?
Why are banks cutting rewards and raising rates at the same time?
Is Westpac raising its purchase rates as well?
How many providers have changed their rewards cards ahead of October?
Vikram Singh writes about banking. He follows where money actually moves, from the strategy set in head office to what changes on a customer's phone.
