A federal court in California has cleared the way for a large group of U.S. card issuers to pursue antitrust claims against Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) over fees tied to Apple Pay. On September 23, 2026, US District Judge Jeffrey S. White certified a class of payment-card issuers and rejected Apple’s bid to exclude expert testimony offered by the plaintiffs.
The ruling does not decide liability or damages.
It only allows the case to proceed collectively rather than as a series of individual suits.
The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by three credit unions: Affinity Credit Union, GreenState Credit Union, and Consumers Co-op Credit Union.
They allege that Apple used its control of the iPhone’s near-field communication hardware to keep competing tap-to-pay wallets off iOS devices.
With no rival contactless option available on the iPhone for years, the complaint says, Apple was able to charge issuers fees that competing Android wallets do not impose.
Under the fee structure described in the case, US issuers pay Apple 15 basis points, or 0.15 percent, on credit-card transactions completed through Apple Pay and half a cent on each debit transaction.
A $100 credit purchase therefore costs the issuing institution 15 cents.
Plaintiffs contend those charges generated as much as $1 billion a year for Apple and that the same tap-and-pay function is available on Android at no charge to issuers.
They argue the fees would not have been sustainable if competing wallets had been allowed to use the iPhone’s NFC chip.
The certified class covers every US entity that issued a payment card enabled for Apple Pay and paid Apple a fee on transactions made with that card.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say thousands of banks and credit unions fall within that definition.
Common questions identified by the court include whether
Apple possessed monopoly power in the relevant mobile-wallet markets, whether its policies harmed competition, and whether issuers paid supra-competitive prices as a result.
The suit seeks repayment of fees already collected and an injunction against the practices the plaintiffs challenge.
Apple has long maintained that Apple Pay provides security, convenience, and reach that justify its commercial terms.
The company has also pointed to later policy changes that opened NFC access to some third-party developers beginning with iOS 18.1.
Those changes post-date much of the period covered by the claims.
Class certification is a procedural step, not a verdict.
The issuers still must prove their antitrust theories at trial or in settlement talks.
If they succeed, the financial impact could be substantial given the volume of Apple Pay transactions and the number of institutions now able to join the action. For now, the decision simply lets a broad group of card issuers litigate together over historical fees paid for access to Apple’s mobile wallet.
