NextFin News - Britain’s competition watchdog has opened a fresh front in its effort to loosen the grip Apple and Google hold over mobile app payments, proposing rules that would let developers steer users to off-platform payment options and, in the regulator’s view, force the two companies to compete more directly on fees and service quality. The consultation lands on 30 June 2026 and targets one of the most lucrative choke points in the mobile economy: who controls the customer relationship once an app is installed, and who gets paid when a user buys digital goods or services.
The Competition and Markets Authority says the problem is not simply that Apple and Google run the dominant mobile ecosystems in the UK. It is that those ecosystems still give the platforms leverage over how developers talk to customers, how they process purchases and how much of each transaction they keep. The CMA says the proposed steering requirements would remove restrictions currently preventing UK app developers from directing users away from Apple and Google’s payment systems. In plain terms, the regulator wants to make it easier for app makers to tell customers where else they can pay.
The consultative step is not a final order, but it marks a meaningful escalation in the UK’s digital-markets regime. The CMA is no longer speaking only in broad terms about market power. It is now putting forward conduct requirements that would bind specific platform behavior. The agency says steering is currently banned by Apple and restricted by Google in the UK. It also says that lifting those constraints would allow developers to bypass mandatory fees set by the platforms.
That matters because app-store commission structures have been one of the most contested features of the mobile economy for years. In its consultation documents, the CMA says Apple still charges a headline commission fee of 30% for digital goods and services, with a reduced 15% rate for developers in its Small Business Programme who earned no more than $1 million in the previous calendar year and no more than $1 million in the current calendar year. The Google consultation says that until recently Google charged a headline commission of 30% for payments made through Google Play Billing, and that the Play Store’s annual average commission rate on mobile devices in the UK between 2020 and 2024 sat in a range rather than at a single published point.
The regulator is not arguing that all app-store commissions should disappear. Its stated goal is narrower and more operational: give developers a fairer chance to talk to customers, move purchases off-platform where they choose, and keep more of the value created by their own products. The CMA says the consultation includes principles intended to ensure the fees Apple and Google charge for steering are fair and reasonable, and that it expects those fees to be lower than current app-store charges. It further says any savings should be passed through to UK customers or reinvested in the developers’ businesses to support future innovation.
The Real Battle Is Over Customer Access, Not Just Percentages
The most important point in the CMA’s proposal is that the regulator is attacking the mechanism of control before it attacks the price level. That distinction matters. A 30% commission is visible, easy to criticize and easy to compare across markets. But the deeper source of platform power is the platform’s ability to control the path from product discovery to payment. If a developer cannot tell a user inside an app that a cheaper or more flexible payment route exists elsewhere, then the platform can keep the payment funnel inside its own walls and collect fees with limited competitive pressure.
That is why the CMA keeps returning to the language of steering. Steering is not a side issue or a consumer-rights add-on. It is the economic hinge that determines whether app developers can form a direct relationship with their customers. The regulator’s consultation says steering is currently banned by Apple and restricted by Google in the UK. The practical effect is to leave developers dependent on the platform for access to the user at the precise moment when payment decisions are made.
This is also why the CMA’s proposed rules go beyond a simple fee haircut. If a platform only lowers its commission but keeps strict limits on how developers communicate outside the store, it can preserve much of the same power in a different form. The regulator appears to understand that. Its consultation focuses on conduct requirements that would make steering possible, then uses fee principles to decide what the platform can reasonably charge for that privilege. In other words, the consultation is trying to convert a closed toll road into a road with competing exits.
The broader policy backdrop is the UK’s digital-markets regime, which was designed to let the CMA move faster than traditional competition law and to target the specific practices that keep large platforms entrenched. The current step shows how that regime is supposed to work when it is functioning at full speed: identify the bottleneck, define the conduct problem, and set ex ante rules rather than waiting years for a full abuse case to wind through the courts. That speed matters in app stores because the business model evolves quickly. Once developers accept one set of rules across distribution, payments and customer communication, those rules can harden into market structure.
The CMA’s own language suggests it sees the issue as structural rather than episodic. It says the mobile platforms are used by thousands of businesses across the UK economy and that the current restrictions limit competition in a vital part of the mobile ecosystem. That framing is important because it places app-store policy alongside infrastructure policy. The question is not whether a few developers might save a bit of money. It is whether the country’s default distribution and payment rails for mobile software are organized in a way that leaves meaningful room for competitive entry.
“We are consulting today on draft conduct requirements to support so-called ‘steering’, or the ability for app developers to engage directly with their users outside Apple and Google’s app stores.”
That line from the CMA captures the immediate target. But it also signals the regulator’s underlying logic. The agency is not trying to abolish app stores. It is trying to stop the stores from being the only place where economic power is exercised. If developers can communicate and transact outside the platforms, then Apple and Google must compete not only on convenience and security, but on the price and quality of the services they actually provide.
Why This Round Looks More Serious Than Earlier App-Store Pressure
The UK is not the first jurisdiction to challenge app-store economics, and the debate over commissions is hardly new. What makes this round more consequential is that the CMA is using a dedicated digital-markets regime to propose conduct requirements specifically for designated platforms. That gives it a more direct lever than the usual antitrust rhythm of investigation, complaint, litigation and appeal. The result is a regulatory framework that can move from diagnosis to intervention with less delay.
Apple’s and Google’s mobile platforms were both designated as having strategic market status. That designation is more than a label. It is the legal foundation that allows the CMA to design interventions around recurring market power rather than isolated conduct. Once the regulator has that footing, it can ask not just whether a practice is lawful in the abstract, but whether it should be allowed to remain in a market where two ecosystems mediate access to most smartphone users.
The consultation documents make clear that the CMA wants a calibrated intervention. On Google’s side, the regulator says the Play Store’s annual average commission rate on mobile devices in the UK between 2020 and 2024 sat in a range, and that Google until recently charged 30% for digital goods and services paid through Google Play Billing. On Apple’s side, the same headline rate still applies, with a lower 15% tier for the Small Business Programme. Those figures matter not because they are shocking in isolation, but because they show how durable the current monetization model has been.
At the same time, the CMA is signaling that fee levels alone are not the full story. If steering fees are set too high, they can reproduce the old economic barrier under a new name. If they are set too low or not monitored properly, the platforms could argue that they are being forced to provide customer access or payment infrastructure with insufficient compensation. The consultation therefore has to solve a tricky balancing act: it wants to unlock competition without making the rules so loose that the intervention becomes unenforceable.
That is why the fee principles matter. The CMA says its framework should produce steering fees that are fair and reasonable and lower than current app-store charges. The regulator also says the point is to ensure any gains flow through either to consumers or back into innovation. The language sounds technical, but the economic ambition is plain: the platforms should no longer be able to charge like toll collectors for access to their own users unless they can justify the toll with actual cost and value.
For developers, the significance is strategic. App-store fees are not just a cost line; they influence pricing, subscription models, customer retention and how much revenue can be ploughed back into product development. A developer that can direct users to a web checkout, in theory, gains leverage over both price and relationship. It can test lower margins, offer discounts, and reduce dependence on platform billing rules. The CMA’s proposal is trying to make that option real enough to matter.
For the platforms, the stakes are equally clear. If steering becomes a normal feature of the UK market, Apple and Google lose some of the structural advantage that comes from owning both distribution and payment. They may still win users on convenience, security, trust and ecosystem integration. But they would need to compete harder for the transaction itself. That could force more product differentiation and, eventually, a more disciplined pricing model.
“We think it is important to give both app developers and users more choice about how they communicate and how they transact.”
That is the policy line the CMA is pushing. It is also the line that reveals the regulator’s theory of harm. The agency believes the market is not healthy when choice exists in theory but not at the point that matters most: payment. By centering communications and transactions, the CMA is making clear that competition in digital markets is about relationship ownership, not just app availability.
What The Consultation Means For The UK App Economy
If the proposals survive consultation and become binding, the most immediate effect would likely be to change how app developers design their checkout flows and customer communications in the UK. Apps could begin to route more users to websites or other payment channels outside the store, especially where the economics of subscriptions or digital purchases make the savings worthwhile. That would not end app-store billing, but it could make it one option among several rather than the default funnel.
The second-order effect could be more important. Once developers can steer more freely, platforms may have to compete by improving user experience, simplifying dispute handling and reducing the friction that has long made in-store billing seem unavoidable. In that scenario, the regulator would have done more than shave commissions. It would have changed the bargaining position of the app developer.
There are still practical questions. The consultation has to define what counts as fair and reasonable steering fees, how compliance is monitored, and how the rules are enforced if a platform attempts to preserve control through design changes rather than explicit bans. Those details will determine whether the intervention becomes a meaningful constraint or another layer of regulation that the biggest platforms can adapt to without changing much in practice.
But the direction of travel is now unmistakable. The UK regulator is using its new digital-markets powers to push Apple and Google toward a more open commercial model, one in which developers are not trapped inside platform payment rails and users are given more visible choice. That is a major shift from the old assumption that app stores get to set the terms of access and take their cut with minimal resistance.
The next catalyst is the consultation itself: responses from developers, consumer groups and the platforms will shape whether the CMA keeps the current structure, narrows the proposed restrictions or moves ahead with a broader intervention. What matters most is that the question has changed. It is no longer whether the app stores can be challenged. It is how much of their control over customer relationships the regulator is willing to take away.
Apple and Google still own the largest gateways to mobile commerce. The CMA is now testing whether ownership of the gateway should continue to include ownership of the toll booth.
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