New fees for using Apple Pay online

No different than a merchant having a Cash Price and a Credit price. Apple is not charging you anything, but a merchant is free to do as they wish and you have the choice on which merchants you want to do business with.

I agree it could be a merchant applied fee. I’ve seen it and it’s just another way of persuading customers to use cash. But for the lower cost of Apple Pay transactions in seems counterproductive. Credit processors are typically charging about 3% for a small merchant tap-to-pay transaction.

It literally makes no sense for a merchant to charge extra. Merchants don’t pay anything to use Apple Pay. The issuing bank is charged a fee of 10¢ per $100 of transactions. Large scale merchants may be able to negotiate a better rate. In addition most credit card processors charge merchants a lower transaction rate because Apple Pay has lower incidence of fraud. My small merchant account is charged a 1% lower fee if Apple Pay/Tap-To-Pay is used.

Apple and Apple Pay do not participate in your transactions. If a fee was charged, it was charged by the merchant, Payment Network Operator (Visa, Mastercard etc.) or the issuing bank.