Apple is facing a lawsuit over its Apple Pay solution, with the company being accused of antitrust behaviour.

The lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg, claims the Cupertino-based outfit is too controlling over its Apple Pay platform, along with putting in practices that other tap-to-pay solutions for smartphones simply do not.

To that end a number of US card companies say Apple charge a 0.15 percent fee on credit card transactions and a 0.05 percent charge on debit cards. This is not something that similar Android tap-to-pay solutions do, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit note, with most offering it for free.

According to Affinity Credit Union, an Iowa-based payment card credit union that is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Apple raked in over $1 billion in 2019 from credit card providers, with that figure set to quadruple in 2023.

The Union believes that if Apple had competition in the its iPhone ecosystem for Apple Pay, the company would not be charging the fees that it does. “If Apple faced competition, it could not sustain these substantial fees,” it noted in the lawsuit filed on Monday this week.

Added to this is a restriction from Apple on other tap-to-pay solutions being launched within its ecosystem. To that end, PayPal, Square Chase, Citi and American Express have all had plans to launch an offering scuppered by Apple, with its own Apple Pay solution reigning supreme.

Whether there is indeed anything that can come out of this lawsuit remains to be seen, but if something does materialise, it would set a precedent for the company’s Apple Pay operations in other parts of the world.

At the time of writing Apple is yet to issue an official comment or statement on the matter.

[Source – Bloomberg]