Google Announces That European Developers Can Now To Use Their Own Billing Systems

Developers of non-gaming apps in the European Economic Area (EEA) will now have the opportunity of offering alternate payment systems, Google has announced in a blog post.

The Alphabet Inc-owned company in the blog post also outlined its intention to comply with the Digital Markets Act (or DMA),  a EU regulation by the European Commission that intends to ensure a higher degree of competition in the European Digital Markets.

The DMA, a piece of legislation aimed at regulating big tech that was earlier in the month passed  by the European Parliament will go into full force spring  2023, but Google is moving faster than the tide to ensure its plans “serve the needs” of users.

DMA requires “gatekeepers,” or companies with a market capitalization of €74 billion or over, to align to a set of rules that would encourage competition among digital platforms. The legislations fines companies who failed to comply up to 10 percent of their global revenue or 20 percent in case of repeat offenses.

Google is charging Android developers who chose to use an alternate payment processor a service fee for each transaction on the first $1 million made one year, with the company saying it would reduce this fee by 3 percent, an indication that it will now take a 12 percent or lower cut from every transaction.

Google also announced that If developers make more than $1 million in one year, it will charge them a 27 percent fee on transactions, 3 percent lower than the standard 30 percent.

While justifying this fee on a support page, Google noted that it “has never been simply a fee for payment processing” and instead “reflects the value provided by Android and Play.”

The new policy sees Google halting the removal of apps that use alternative payment systems, in as much as the payment systems meet Google’s requirements.

The implication of this is that it will serve users in the EEA (European countries in and outside the EU), while it will also prevent users not located in the EEA from accessing the payment system. It also announces that developers must provide customer support for the billing service they choose.