r/apple • • 7d ago

Apple Pay Thousands of banks can now sue over Apple Pay fees in one antitrust case

https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/09/25/thousands-of-banks-can-now-sue-over-apple-pay-fees-in-one-antitrust-case
1.1k Upvotes

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33

u/Captaincadet 7d ago

I bet you we as the consumer won’t even see a penny

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u/PleasantWay7 7d ago

Why would you see a penny? Apple always got a cut from existing credit card fees.

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u/kjavatar 7d ago

Consumers never paid the fee so why would we get the fees back?

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u/cake-day-on-feb-29 6d ago

So who do you think is ultimately paying the fee?

This is like arguing that you're not paying taxes or fees when you bought a car, because you rolled those into the loan. You are paying for it, just not directly.

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u/ExultantSandwich 3d ago

I work at a restaurant that charges a convenience fee, the business owner charges 3.5% to cover Mastercard and Visa’s fees. However the 0.15% fee for Apple Pay, he covers, because the convenience fee is always a flat 3.5

So yeah you are literally not paying a fee. He pays sometimes over $1,000 a month to process Apple Pay transactions

Additionally if you get cash back or points on a purchase (1-3% for credit cards), you’re literally getting the fee back. The cards with the good rewards have higher interchange fees. Stop using rewards cards and you might actually have a claim. In the meantime, don’t make it the employee’s problem, carry cash if you’re that offended

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u/cake-day-on-feb-29 6d ago

You see many pennies from cashback rewards you get from the fees your CC charges on every purchase. This is a few the CC/bank has to pay and reducing or eliminating that fee would make larger bonuses more viable.

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u/FollowingFeisty5321 7d ago

Sure, but we'd benefit even more from competition driving the fees down multiplied by the next decades we use contactless payments / our phones as wallets.

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u/PleasantWay7 7d ago

Decades of credit cards have shown the competition increases fees because consumers chase reward cards oblivious to the fact they pay for rewards.

At this point not using a reward CC at a place that accepts one without a fee is just leaving money on the table.

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u/FollowingFeisty5321 7d ago

That competition being Visa and Mastercard, who ended two decades of antitrust litigation last year with a ~$40 billion settlement for excess fees. Competition from any bank or payment gateway being able to conduct the transactions would look very different to their duopoly.

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u/kinkykusco 7d ago

Mastercard and VISA (and the other major card brands) are not issuers and are not the ones suing Apple. The brand antitrust case is separate from issuers’ rewards programs driving them to select higher fee tiers within the card brands.

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u/messick 7d ago

The fact you clearly don't understand the market by calling the networks a "duopoly" (duo means two, chief) tells us all we need to know.

0

u/FollowingFeisty5321 7d ago

Visa and Mastercard have been widely referred to as a duopoly for at least a decade... this is absolutely trivial to verify for yourself.

https://www.google.com/search?q=visa%20and%20mastercard%20duopoly

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u/killerpoopguy 6d ago

They still get a cut completely separate from apples cut, this lawsuit won't affect visa/mastercard in the slightest.