DEFT is ending card payments.
Keep earning anyway.
From 1 October 2026, cards stop working on deft.com.au and scheduled card payments get cancelled. Pay your rent and levies through pay.com.au instead: fund them with Visa or Mastercard, keep the card points, stack PayRewards on top.
100,000+ Australian businesses already earning payback on their expenses
What's changing
Your biggest bills are about to stop paying you back
Macquarie Bank's DEFT platform collects payments for a wide range of billers: body corporates, strata managers, insurers, schools and utilities among them. From 1 October 2026, none of it earns.
Cards stop on 1 October 2026
From that date you can no longer pay a DEFT notice directly on deft.com.au by credit or debit card. You're limited to whatever non-card methods DEFT still supports.
Scheduled card payments get cancelled
Card payments scheduled for 1 October 2026 or later will be cancelled on that date, DEFT confirms. They won't carry over. Miss the switch and the rent runs late.
The alternatives earn nothing
Bank transfer is fee free, sure. Points free too. Move your rent and levies to direct debit and thousands of dollars in card rewards a year go with them.
Is this you?
Which DEFT payments can you keep on card?
pay.com.au is a business payments platform. If the payment belongs to your business, it belongs here.
Commercial rent
Premises rent billed through DEFT by your managing agent. Usually the biggest line on the books, which makes it the biggest earner on the platform.
Owners corporation & body corporate levies
Quarterly levies on commercial or company-held property. Lumpy bills that hit cash flow hard. Put them on card and they finally hit back.
Strata & property management fees
Strata manager bills, facilities and building management charges. If it arrives with a DEFT reference number, it can earn on the way out.
Other DEFT-billed business expenses
Business insurance, school fees, utilities and any other legitimate business expense billed through DEFT. Same platform, same payback.
How it works
Same DEFT bill. New payback.
Nothing changes for your agent or strata manager. Their DEFT account receives a normal BPAY payment carrying the Customer Reference Number (CRN) from your notice.
Grab your DEFT details
The BPAY Biller Code and Customer Reference Number (CRN) are on your DEFT notice, same as always.
Add the bill to pay.com.au
Set it up once. Schedule it monthly or quarterly so the rent and levies pay themselves.
Fund it with your card
Visa or Mastercard. Your card earns its points like any other purchase.
We pay DEFT. You earn twice.
We pay via BPAY, your biller sees a standard DEFT payment, and PayRewards stack on top if you opt in.
What are your DEFT payments actually worth?
Calculate the net rewards you can earn every time the rent or levies fall due.
2 Points Per $1
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Why route it through pay.com.au
The double-dip, applied to the bills you can't avoid
Rent and levies are locked-in costs. They should be earning their keep.
Fund it with the card in your wallet
Visa and Mastercard all work here. The card fee for your scheme is shown before you confirm, every time.
Keep your float
Card funding keeps up to 55 days interest-free before the statement falls due. Direct debit takes the cash the day the bill lands.
Double-dip every bill
Card points and PayRewards Points on the same dollar of rent. Send them to 17 airline and hotel partners, Qantas and Virgin at 2:1, or flex them on gift cards and invoices.
Run your numbers
And the fees? Typically tax deductible as a business expense.
Straight answers on trust
Adding a step to your rent? Fair to ask questions.
How we make money
The platform fee on each payment is our revenue, and you see it before you confirm. No hidden margin.
Your money goes direct to your biller
Your agent or strata manager receives a standard BPAY payment into their DEFT account, CRN attached. Nothing for them to set up, nothing to explain.
Built like it handles payments
PCI DSS compliant with two-factor authentication. $20B+ moved for 100,000+ Australian businesses. Pay.com.au Limited holds AFSL 700223.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Calculator assumptions and disclaimer
* Good news! The rates for using the pay.com.au payments platform are usually tax deductible for businesses.
†Indicative estimated value of airline points is calculated at 3.5 cents per airline point – this is our estimate of redemption value based on international business class flight redemption. You may not get this value as redemption value rates vary (depending on airline and flights route/class) and any airline point redemption is subject to availability.
Calculations use rates from 1 October 2026: the Free plan card processing rate for your card’s scheme (Visa 1.20%, Mastercard 1.20%, both ex GST; linked bank account free), the selected PayRewards package fee, and each card’s published earn rate, points caps and airline conversion rate. The card processing rate also applies to the PayRewards package fee (GST inclusive), because that fee is charged to your card too. The headline airline points figure converts PayRewards to Qantas Points at 2:1 and the card’s points at its airline conversion rate. Fees are shown excluding GST and after a 25% company tax deduction.
Net ROI is the indicative airline value divided by platform fees after tax. CommBank cards are shown at the base Yello tier. Card earn rates and caps change over time, so check your card’s current terms.
DEFT is a payment system owned and operated by Macquarie Bank Limited. pay.com.au is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to DEFT, Macquarie Bank or Macquarie Group. Information about DEFT's payment changes is drawn from deft.com.au as at 20 August 2026 – check deft.com.au for the latest. pay.com.au is a platform for business payments; eligibility criteria apply.
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