It turns out that many Australians are paying far more in credit card interest than they need to. In fact, research shows Aussies collectively shelled out an estimated $1.6 billion in unnecessary interest in 2025 \u2014 and it\u2019s all due to the tendency to stick with high-interest credit cards without reviewing their options. The staggering figure was revealed in a recent survey by finance comparison site Canstar, which highlights how much Australians are losing by simply not shopping around for better credit card deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might be wondering how this happened. Well, a third of Aussies have never bothered to review their credit cards or switch to a better deal, according to the research. The rest of the respondents weren\u2019t much better \u2014 nearly half of those surveyed hadn\u2019t checked their cards in over a year. Can you imagine that? It\u2019s like paying extra on your phone bill because you didn\u2019t bother to shop for a cheaper plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reality is that credit card interest rates in Australia can range from 8.99% to a whopping 28.49%. This wide variation means that, if you\u2019re on the higher end of that scale, you could be throwing away a lot of money each year in interest payments. In fact, Canstar\u2019s analysis showed that Australians collectively paid over $3.4 billion in credit card interest last year. Had they switched to cards with lower rates, they could\u2019ve saved an estimated $1.6 billion, reports 9News<\/a>. That\u2019s a lot of money that could have been spent elsewhere or saved for a rainy day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n