2025-05.html.j2 (3606B)
1 {% extends "common/news.j2" %} 2 {% block body_content %} 3 4 <h1>2025-07: "Apple Pay vs. Alternative Payment Services"</h1> 5 <p> 6 <small>by Marc Stibane</small> 7 </p> 8 <h2>Thought experiment</h2> 9 <p> 10 Imagine an airport which issues a frequent traveller card which millions of 11 passengers have signed up for. This Airport demands from the shops in the 12 airport mall to either only offer their traveller card for payments, or any 13 other payment method, but not both. So if merchants offer alternative payment 14 methods to customers, they may not offer the airport traveller card. 15 </p> 16 <p> 17 This would be ridiculous, right? We expect that every merchant can offer their 18 customers all payment methods they want - some merchants only accept cash, 19 some accept debit but not credit cards, some accept all cards you can think 20 of. An Airport should never demand that shops in their mall wanting to offer 21 the traveller card are not allowed to offer other payment methods. Would the 22 EU allow Visa or Mastercard to impose such exclusion rules on merchants who 23 want to accept their credit cards? Definitely not. 24 </p> 25 26 <h2>AppStore Rules</h2> 27 <p> 28 But that's exactly what Apple demands from app manufacturers in their mall: 29 App manufacturers must decide whether their apps either offer Apple payments only 30 (in which case millions of users can pay easily with just two clicks) or whether 31 they use an alternative payment service. They are <b>not</b> 32 allowed to offer their users to choose from both Apple payments and alternative 33 payment services. 34 </p> 35 <p> 36 This means app manufacturers have no real freedom of choice. Since millions of 37 customers already have signed up for Apple payments in their Apple account, app 38 manufacturers cannot really afford to exclude them as potential customers. 39 App manufacturers should be able to freely choose one or multiple payment methods 40 (Apple payments and/or alternative payment providers) to offer their customers. 41 Users would then have the choice for each payment, which of the offered payment 42 methods they want to use now. 43 And of course, zero fees should go to Apple if the choice is an alternative 44 payment service. 45 </p> 46 47 <h2>Apple itself does not eat their own dogfood</h2> 48 <p> 49 The Apple Store, where Apple sells its own hardware, offers multiple payment 50 methods. Customers in the Apple Store can pay not only with Apple Pay, but 51 also with debit or credit cards, bank transfers, or PayPal. Apple knows it 52 would lose sales if it offered only one payment method. 53 </p> 54 <div align=center> 55 <img src="{{ url_static('images/applecheckout.png') }}" alt="Screenshot of Apple Store checkout"> 56 </div> 57 <p> 58 Here, the gatekeeper Apple offers Apple Pay and other payment methods 59 simultaneously, and lets customers choose how they want to pay for each order. 60 App manufacturers in the AppStore may only offer either-or, but not both. In 61 this situation, alternative payment providers have zero chance to be chosen 62 instead of Apple payments, since few app manufacturers would risk to lose their 63 existing customers. 64 </p> 65 66 <h2>Fair competition!</h2> 67 <p> 68 Countries should require Apple to let app manufacturers offer all payment methods 69 they want (incl. Apple payments) simultaneously, so the end customer can decide 70 which payment method to choose for each individual payment. We hope EU's 71 Digital Market Act will allow the commission to establish such a rule in Europe. 72 </p> 73 74 (Note: In a former version of this article the term "ApplePay" was used. We changed 75 this to "Apple payments". This refers to the payment method that the user has set up 76 in their Apple account.) 77 {% endblock body_content %}