Apple has offered to open up the iPhone near-field communication (NFC) system that Apple Pay uses to other payment services, in a possible effort to...
Apple Pay charge a flat rate (around 0.1 to 0.2%) taken from the interchange fee. This is charged to the issuer specifically, i.e. the bank that issued the payment card.
The card network (visa, MasterCard, etc. also charge a flat fee to the issue for each transaction to the issuer, similarly to Apple Pay.
Issuers generally don’t increase merchant fees to account for Apple’s fee because it is highly negligible.
(As for merchants, they may charge you the entire interchange fee on top of your bill, but the Apple Pay part is still negligible.)
Take an example of a $100 purchase: interchange fee is around $2, of which Apple takes 0.15%, or 0.3¢. Its very, very low because Apple aims for high volume, and doesn’t want merchants or issuers to discourage use (think “WE DONT TAKE AMEX” signs).
That means they get high volumes of transactions, likely in the range of millions an hour worldwide, and so they still make money hand over fist even at this extremely low rate.
(Apologies if you already know this stuff, thought I’d share anyway as it’s my area of work!)
(OP commenter here again) This is correct.
Apple Pay charge a flat rate (around 0.1 to 0.2%) taken from the interchange fee. This is charged to the issuer specifically, i.e. the bank that issued the payment card.
The card network (visa, MasterCard, etc. also charge a flat fee to the issue for each transaction to the issuer, similarly to Apple Pay.
Issuers generally don’t increase merchant fees to account for Apple’s fee because it is highly negligible.
(As for merchants, they may charge you the entire interchange fee on top of your bill, but the Apple Pay part is still negligible.)
Take an example of a $100 purchase: interchange fee is around $2, of which Apple takes 0.15%, or 0.3¢. Its very, very low because Apple aims for high volume, and doesn’t want merchants or issuers to discourage use (think “WE DONT TAKE AMEX” signs).
That means they get high volumes of transactions, likely in the range of millions an hour worldwide, and so they still make money hand over fist even at this extremely low rate.
(Apologies if you already know this stuff, thought I’d share anyway as it’s my area of work!)