The age-old Italian question of what the cost of owning a POS machine to pay with cards is and who has to bear it, is today overcome, at least for those who own an iPhone, by the entry into our country of the Apple service.Tap to pay'.
Therefore, the machine provided by the bank or another entity is not necessary, just download an app. It must be said that in recent years the cost of the POS fee applied by banks, both as an initial sum and as a monthly sum, has dropped significantly.
Now Apple's innovation allows the merchant or professional who owns a smartphone from the Cupertino company to use it as a POS, accepting debit and payment cards, saving himself from renting the “physical” machine.
The monthly cost of the POS fee is now between 6 and 8 euros, net of specific commercial offers that can further reduce it. A trend that also affected the commissions for the merchant (the so-called acquiring costs) which range from 0.8% more.
These have been reduced both due to technological innovation and the increase in the customer base and finally also due to the pressure of consumers and supervisory authorities and politicians, especially on micropayments with the establishment of a specific 'Pos table' which it concerned only the issue of commissions.
The pandemic has in fact accelerated the Italian digital payments market in recent years to the detriment of cash, allowing it to recover much of the hoped-for distance from other countries.
The latest data from the Bank of Italy referring to 2023 see the increase in active cards from 13,344 to 13,498 with a greater increase in debit cards which grew from 64,696 to 67,415. THE
n increase in POS which rose from 3,396,844 to 3,632,978. According to the observatory of the Polytechnic University of Milan, in 2023 almost 8 out of 10 digital transactions in stores will be carried out in “tap & go” mode with contactless physical cards or with devices equipped with NFC technology, which together reach a transaction value of 240 billion of euros. It will therefore be seen whether Apple's entry will change the market or affect the commercial offer. The tap to pay service is already available in the USA and France main payment networks, such as American Express, Discover Global Network, Diners, Mastercard and Visa.