Apple is set to reap fees from banks when consumers use an iPhone 6 in place of credit and debit cards for purchases, sources have disclosed.Citing Forrester Research, a Bloomberg report on the launch of the new phone and Apple Pay estimated the mobile-payments market would probably more than quadruple to about US$90 billion by 2017, making it a tempting target for known technology "disruptors" such as Apple. While that gives the tech company a share of the more than US$40 billion that banks generate annually from so-called swipe fees, lenders expect to benefit as consumers spend more of their money via mobile phones and other digital devices, the report said.The arrangement builds on the existing fee structure for credit and debit cards in the US. Merchants there typically pay fees totalling about two per cent of the purchase price for credit-card transactions. The swipe fees, also known as interchange, help card-issuing banks cover fraud costs and fund reward programs.Apple Pay relies on partnerships with the three biggest card networks, Visa, MasterCard and American Express, to process payments. Visa and MasterCard handled 63.4 billion purchase transactions in the U.S. last year valued at US$3.32 trillion, according to the companies' data, reported Bloomberg.US card spending at American Express, which is a network and also the biggest credit-card issuer by purchases, totalled US$637 billion last year.Apple's partnerships give it access to a fully developed payment infrastructure, while ensuring big financial firms have a role in mobile payments.Commenting on the launch of  the iPhone 6  and Apple Pay, Bradley Gerdis, CEO of ASX listed independent EFTPOS and payments provider Smartpay, said: "after years of speculation, Apple have settled on the existing NFC, or 'contactless' standard as the hardware technology platform."While details on the actual technical specification have not yet been released, Apple's presentation of the technology indicates it should be compatible with existing NFC and contactless-enabled EFTPOS terminals."Of perhaps greater interest is what this may mean for banks as the traditional players in this space ... Apple's recent move seems to be aimed at the "issuing" side of the transaction," Gerdis said.