27 March 2003 12:00am

An access regime that may dictate the terms of third party use of the banking industry's debit card networks is under consideration by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, as the competition watchdog considers proposals by banks to set interchange on Eftpos transactions to zero.

The Reserve Bank is lobbying the ACCC to include rules on access as a condition of the approval of the industry's request to act in concert in the determination of interchange.

At present, banks pay each other interchange fees of between 18 cents and 25 cents to process Eftpos...