Britain’s competition watchdog has launched a consultation that could force Apple and Google to let app developers point users toward cheaper payment options outside their official stores, a step that may eventually dent the commissions both firms collect from in-app purchases.
The Competition and Markets Authority wants to scrap rules that currently stop developers from telling UK customers about ways to pay outside the app stores — something Apple bars outright and Google only partially allows. Under the plan, any fee the platforms charge for permitting this kind of redirection would have to be justified, reasonable, and cheaper than what app makers pay today, with the regulator expecting the savings to land with consumers or get ploughed back into app development.
A senior CMA official framed the effort as being about giving both developers and users more freedom in how they communicate and transact, arguing that injecting competition into this corner of the mobile market is overdue.
The move builds on a decision made last autumn, when the CMA formally labeled Apple and Google as holding “strategic market status” in the UK — a designation reserved for the biggest tech players and one that hands the regulator power to impose tailored rules on their conduct. That designation followed findings that the two companies together control nearly the entire UK smartphone market between their operating systems.
Google has pointed to recent updates to its Play Store terms as evidence it’s already moving in the direction regulators want, though those changes still come with conditions attached. Apple has not yet commented publicly on the new proposals.
Separately, the CMA is also exploring whether Apple should be made to open up the NFC chip in iPhones — the technology behind tap-to-pay — to outside developers, which could pave the way for banks and fintech firms to build their own contactless payment tools rather than relying solely on Apple’s wallet.
The regulator is taking public feedback into late July before deciding later this year whether to turn any of these proposals into binding requirements. Officials estimate the app sector contributes roughly 1.5% of UK economic output and supports several hundred thousand jobs nationally.
The push is the latest chapter in a multi-year review of mobile platform competition that started back in 2021 and has already produced a separate round of voluntary commitments from both companies earlier this year — commitments that critics say fell short of the more forceful interoperability rules adopted under the EU’s equivalent digital markets law.
