Apple Could Get A Cut Of Every Transaction When People Use The New iPhone Payments System

AppleHere's how Apple Pay will look in the Apple's app Passbook

During its mega-presentation Tuesday, Apple announced a new mobile payments system called Apple Pay. which will let owners of the new iPhone or Apple Watch ditch physical credit cards and instead pay for things with a simple tap of their device.

Although Apple made it clear that it won't charge users, merchants, or developers to use this new service, sources with knowledge of the arrangement told Bloomberg's Elizabeth Dexheimer that Apple will charge banks a fee.

Apple reportedly reached deals with the handful of participating banks individually and will collect a fee for every Apple Pay transaction that takes place. This would effectively give it a slice of the more than $40 million that banks make from swipe fees every year.

Dexheimer's sources didn't specify the size of the fee that Apple will collect or whether it would be tied to the price of the purchases, though they said it could vary. But even if the fee is tiny, it could add up to a huge win for Apple.

Apple Pay will work with an NFC (near field communication) chip that will be built into the new devices, and the service is starting in October the U.S. and will work with the major credit card companies American Express, Mastercard, and Visa.

Read the rest of the Bloomberg article here.