The main class action lawsuit over Apple Pay is Affinity Credit Union v. Apple Inc., filed in July 2022 in the Northern District of California on behalf of U.S. payment card issuers. It alleges Apple abuses its control over the iPhone’s tap-to-pay hardware to charge banks and credit unions fees that a competitive market would not support. A federal judge let the core antitrust claims move forward in 2023, and the case is still active. Apple faces parallel actions from the U.S. Department of Justice and a £1.5 billion consumer claim in the United Kingdom over the same conduct.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
The claim turns on a single piece of hardware: the near-field communication (NFC) chip inside every iPhone. That chip is what makes contactless payments work when you tap your phone at a checkout terminal. Outside the European Economic Area, only Apple Pay can use it. Rival wallets are locked out.
According to Affinity Credit Union, an Iowa-chartered credit union that brought the suit on behalf of a proposed class of card issuers, Apple leverages that lockout to charge banks and credit unions 0.15 percent on every credit card transaction routed through Apple Pay and half a cent on every debit transaction.{1BBC. Apple Sued Over Apple Pay Fees by Credit Union} The complaint estimates those fees generate at least $1 billion a year for Apple. Competing wallets on Android, the complaint notes, charge card issuers nothing.
The theory is straightforward antitrust: if rival wallets could reach the NFC chip on iPhone, Apple would not be able to hold its fee at that level, because issuers would have somewhere else to go. By blocking competitors from the hardware, Apple keeps the fee artificially high. That is the conduct the case is built on.
Where the Case Stands
In September 2023, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White ruled on Apple’s motion to dismiss. He allowed the central antitrust claims to proceed, accepting that the allegations of supracompetitive fees maintained through the NFC restriction were sufficient to move past the pleadings. He dismissed a separate claim that Apple had unlawfully tied its iOS devices to Apple Pay. The case has continued into discovery.{2NBC News. DOJ Apple Antitrust Lawsuit: Digital Wallet Payments}
No settlement, judgment, or class-wide payout has been reached. The docket number for anyone tracking it is Affinity Credit Union v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:22-cv-04174.
The DOJ Antitrust Case Covers the Same Conduct
In March 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice, joined by 15 states and Washington, D.C., filed its own antitrust suit against Apple in the District of New Jersey. The government’s case is broader than payments, but Apple Pay is central to it. The DOJ alleges Apple bars third-party developers from the iPhone’s NFC hardware, blocking rival tap-to-pay wallets from existing on iOS, and charges banks fees no competitive market would sustain.{2NBC News. DOJ Apple Antitrust Lawsuit: Digital Wallet Payments}
On June 30, 2025, Judge Julien Xavier Neals denied Apple’s motion to dismiss. He found the DOJ had adequately alleged monopoly power in the U.S. smartphone market and pointed to the NFC lockout as an example of the kind of “technological barricade” that could qualify as anticompetitive conduct. He held that Apple’s justifications around security and privacy raised factual disputes for discovery and trial rather than grounds for dismissal.{3National Association of Attorneys General. U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Apple Inc.} The case is United States v. Apple Inc., Case No. 2:24-cv-04055.
The UK Consumer Class Action
On January 23, 2026, consumer advocate James Daley, founder of the group Fairer Finance, filed a £1.5 billion class action against Apple at the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal. Unlike the U.S. issuer suit, this one is brought on behalf of consumers. It alleges that Apple’s NFC restrictions let it charge hidden fees to banks, which pass those costs on to roughly 50 million UK consumers through higher prices on banking products.{4The Guardian. Campaigner Launches Legal Action Against Apple Over Apple Pay}
Apple called the claim “misguided” and said it does not charge consumers or merchants for using Apple Pay.
How the EU Resolved the Same Issue
European regulators reached the endpoint the American cases are still headed toward. After a four-year investigation, the European Commission accepted legally binding commitments from Apple on July 11, 2024, requiring Apple to open its NFC hardware to rival payment wallets for ten years. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Apple could “no longer use its control over the iPhone ecosystem to keep other mobile wallets out of the market.”{5Reuters. EU Antitrust Regulators Accept Apple’s Offer to Open Up Mobile Payments System}
Apple opened access through Host Card Emulation APIs starting with iOS 17.4. Nordic service Vipps MobilePay became the first non-Apple wallet to offer NFC payments on iPhones in the region, with PayPal, BLIK, and Swish expected to follow in 2025.{6OECD. Competition Committee Working Document on Mobile Payments} A further Commission decision on March 19, 2025, required Apple to enable NFC-based payment credential transfers for wearables such as smart rings.{7European Commission Digital Markets Act. How the DMA Is Making Smartphones Better}
That EU opening is why iPhone users inside the European Economic Area can now see alternative wallets while users elsewhere cannot.
Can Consumers Claim a Payout?
Not from the U.S. case. The class in Affinity Credit Union v. Apple Inc. is card issuers, meaning banks and credit unions, not individual iPhone owners. Any recovery, if the case gets that far, would go to those institutions. The DOJ suit is a government enforcement action and does not distribute money to consumers either. The UK claim is the one built for consumers, but it is limited to residents covered by the Competition Appeal Tribunal proceeding and has only just been filed.
There is no U.S. consumer settlement fund tied to Apple Pay to sign up for, no claim form, and no deadline. If that changes, it will be because the Affinity case reaches a settlement or judgment that provides for issuer refunds, or because a new consumer-side case is filed and certified.