Apple Brazil challenges watchdog’s inquiry into opening up Apple Pay

After Brazil’s watchdog went to court to force Apple to open the App Store, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) also wants the company to open up Apple Pay similarly to what is currently happening in the EU: The availability of third-party wallets.

With the details from Brazilian blog Tecnoblog, the publication reveals Cade took into account the statements from the Central Bank (Bacen), the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban), and the Zetta association, which represents Nubank, Mercado Livre, PicPay, Neon, Will Bank, Cloudwalk, Unico, and 20 other companies, about Apple offering third-party wallets in Brazil. Currently, the only way to use NFC payments is with Apple’s Wallet solution.

However, these companies and entities claim Apple charges a fee for every Apple Pay transaction. Obviously, they want to avoid paying this fee and offer their solution instead.

With that, Cupertino responded to Cade’s inquiry about opening Apple Pay. Apple says in the document that it doesn’t have a “dominating position” in Brazil, as only 10% of Brazilians own an iPhone.

In addition, Apple states it has already offered an NFC & SE platform that has been open for third-party developers since 2024. In this case, Apple talks about the Tap to Pay platform, which has been expanding worldwide, and lets vendors take payments from their iPhones.

The company also says the digital payment market is “dynamic, full of options,” and Apple Pay doesn’t exclude vendors from offering other options.

While this is only an inquiry, depending on Cade’s findings, it may become an antitrust investigation. As mentioned above, Apple is already facing an investigation regarding the App Store, and it says the same thing: the company isn’t a market leader, and users can switch to Android, the dominant operating system in the country. In addition, even if Apple opens its software for third-party wallets, these companies will still have to pay a fee for each transaction.