The Financial Times has an interesting detail not disclosed or previously reported about Apple’s new payment system introduced earlier this week and due out next month. Through Apple Pay, which uses a combination of NFC and Touch ID for authorizing mobile payments, the iPhone maker will collect 0.15% of each transaction that goes through the service.
That means that every time you use your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus to check out at a supported vendor, a feature which is likely going to save you time, Apple is positioned to build a new revenue stream of its own for facilitating the transaction.
The report that Apple is collecting such a rate for each purchase follows a previous report from Bank Innovation from before Apple announced its new Apple Pay service that the company had negotiated transaction fee discounts with participating major banks. Part of that deal was built on offering “card present” rates despite not requiring the card to be present during the transaction.
This morning we learned that Apple Pay is headed for China through a partnership with UnionPay, as revealed by code in iOS.
The mobile payment system is said to be available next month for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users. In 2015, the Apple Watch release will allow users of that product and iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, or iPhone 5s to use Apple Pay as well.
