Does each merchant need its own Apple developer account?

No. Apple lets payment platforms register their merchants' domains on their behalf. The platform holds the certificates and runs merchant validation for all of them, so merchants do not manage their own Apple developer account or certificates. On NORBr, operators enable Apple Pay per merchant from the Console, and certificates are managed centrally.

Platform registration

Apple Pay on the web requires domain verification and certificates. A merchant that integrates alone creates an Apple developer account, registers its domains and manages a merchant identity certificate and a payment processing certificate. A payment platform can do this for all its merchants: it registers their domains under its own account, holds the certificates and runs merchant validation for each session.

What merchants do

• Nothing on Apple's side.
• They enable Apple Pay in their checkout settings, under the operator's brand.
• They provide their domain, which the platform verifies with Apple.

How it works on NORBr

Operators enable Apple Pay per merchant from the Console. Certificates are managed centrally, renewed before expiry, and shared across the processors in the network that support Apple Pay. Merchants never see a certificate or a developer portal. For the operator, this concentrates the lifecycle work in one place, which matters when there are hundreds of domains and several processors with different decryption requirements. It also means a new merchant can offer Apple Pay on its first day, without waiting for an account approval.