Not exactly. The other users here have explained that Apple Pay does use standard NFC technology but adds a digital “tag” to the transaction.
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EU Hearing 'Many Concerns' About Potential Anticompetitive Issues With Apple Pay
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European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager today acknowledged that her department has received "many concerns" over Apple Pay and potential anticompetitive issues, noting that "people see it becomes increasingly difficult to compete in the market for easy payments," reports Reuters.
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Vestager's comments come after the European Commission sent a questionnaire to a number of companies in August seeking information on whether Apple was restricting online payment options.Apple touts the safety and security of Apple Pay, but critics have claimed that Apple stifles competition by locking down the NFC chip in iOS devices to only work with Apple Pay, making it difficult for other payment services to compete.
Antitrust concerns over Apple Pay are not the only issue for Apple and the EU at the moment, as the European Commission is also still dealing with Spotify's complaint that Apple's App Store unfairly disadvantages third-party app developers in favor of its own apps and services.
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Article Link: EU Hearing 'Many Concerns' About Potential Anticompetitive Issues With Apple Pay
Wait, the EU is whining again? Oh and the sky is blue!
I'd guess the vast majority of the complaints to the EU came from companies that would want free use/free access, not individuals. They're free to complain, and at one level here, all the EU is currently doing is reporting that complaints have been received. A ruling on the validity of the complaints is another matter.
Outside of "freedom of choice," I'm not sure how consumers would benefit. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of price competition in the transaction gateway business - it's all a matter of which company gets to collect the processing fees that are buried in the cost of the goods we buy. As the fees charged by mobile wallets are a small fraction of the total fee charged to the merchants, it's far more likely that it's simply a matter of which company pockets the fee (or the savings that come from not having to pay it to someone else).
I think there's a certain irony in demands to "open" hardware/software systems of this sort to outsiders. The more "keys" there are in circulation, the less secure such a system is. There are more "trusted users" to validate, and greater chances that one or more of them will turn out to be a bad actor. What would an Apple or Samsung have to do to ensure that some game developer wasn't accessing the hardware to skim illicit micro-payments when a game-playing consumer walks past an NFC-equipped terminal, every gameplay touch triggering a payment approval?
I can choose to use Apple Pay, or not. It's little different than the cruise control in my car - I had no real choice over whether the manufacturer included that hardware and software in the product they sold; it's part of a package of features that in its totality is either appealing, or not. It's a matter of whether we find sufficient value in the features that we do use to feel we've spent our money well. It's not a matter of whose cruise control I use. I'd rather the manufacturer have full responsibility for the functioning of such a safety-related feature.
Imagine the complexity of a lawsuit arising out of a malfunctioning cruise control, if the hardware was provided by Ford while the software was provided by a company of my choice (Microsoft, for argument's sake). Microsoft will claim it's a failure of Ford's hardware or software API, Ford will claim it's Microsoft's error. Will the EU then step up and say, "We'll pay, since we demanded an open system?"
Outside of "freedom of choice," I'm not sure how consumers would benefit. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of price competition in the transaction gateway business - it's all a matter of which company gets to collect the processing fees that are buried in the cost of the goods we buy. As the fees charged by mobile wallets are a small fraction of the total fee charged to the merchants, it's far more likely that it's simply a matter of which company pockets the fee (or the savings that come from not having to pay it to someone else).
I think there's a certain irony in demands to "open" hardware/software systems of this sort to outsiders. The more "keys" there are in circulation, the less secure such a system is. There are more "trusted users" to validate, and greater chances that one or more of them will turn out to be a bad actor. What would an Apple or Samsung have to do to ensure that some game developer wasn't accessing the hardware to skim illicit micro-payments when a game-playing consumer walks past an NFC-equipped terminal, every gameplay touch triggering a payment approval?
I can choose to use Apple Pay, or not. It's little different than the cruise control in my car - I had no real choice over whether the manufacturer included that hardware and software in the product they sold; it's part of a package of features that in its totality is either appealing, or not. It's a matter of whether we find sufficient value in the features that we do use to feel we've spent our money well. It's not a matter of whose cruise control I use. I'd rather the manufacturer have full responsibility for the functioning of such a safety-related feature.
Imagine the complexity of a lawsuit arising out of a malfunctioning cruise control, if the hardware was provided by Ford while the software was provided by a company of my choice (Microsoft, for argument's sake). Microsoft will claim it's a failure of Ford's hardware or software API, Ford will claim it's Microsoft's error. Will the EU then step up and say, "We'll pay, since we demanded an open system?"
I am not upset about prices being higher in Europe, plenty of reasons it is, for instance consumer protection, higher taxes, prices quoted including tax instead of without, etcetera.
Eu nonsense???
plenty of good comes from the EU, like cheap roaming, actually, there's no roaming, prices are the same as back in our own country.
Privacy laws on the internet, net neutrality amongst lots of other reasons.
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Why Apple Pay and not my own bank pay, actually, my card is NFC, works like a charm.
Well if Apple paid their tax as required under law, although technically it’s Ireland that needs to pay, then they wouldn’t be under the radar so much.
but if you become a giant American monopoly in the EU and you block competition, then expect to be taken to pieces, it’s not a secret and they have been like this for years, you either play fair or not at all.
The EU is a battle Apple cannot and will not ever win against. Let them waste their billions trying.
but if you become a giant American monopoly in the EU and you block competition, then expect to be taken to pieces, it’s not a secret and they have been like this for years, you either play fair or not at all.
The EU is a battle Apple cannot and will not ever win against. Let them waste their billions trying.
Ireland does not have to pay. They have to collect for themselves.
What the NFC chip does in an Apple phone is provide the best in security. By having a Secure Enclave that cannot be reached except by the user of the Face or TouchID. All commercial enterprises are free to get paid that way. Here's what has happened: the fractured world of Android has developed Samsung Pay (which may or may not have a completely malfunctioning security system), and Android Pay, which has recently gone to something like a beefing up of security. But here's what Apple does: they have people negotiating with people for them to introduce Apple Pay in their establishments. In the US, we were slow to use NFC. The stores that have Apple Pay also have Android forms of payment. Before Apple, there were very few of these NFC terminals anywhere but in Hipstervilles around the country. Now, NFCs are free. Google writes very good software. Apple takes a tiny sliver off of any transfers or payments, from the banks. They run their own service that handles the transactions with the banks, as securely as they can, using the present state of the art. When a bank has a vault, do they share it with unknown persons who also say they're in the NFC business? You're asking Apple to share their vault? You want the combination while you're at it?
Apple Pay is just a wallet. Just like website also accept PayPal. Or credit or debit cards. Heck one of my cards is a multi card and thus a wallet.
sure if Apple were to force to only accept their wallet and no other method than Apple Pay on websites than that is anti competitive.
But as it is, come on EU.
sure if Apple were to force to only accept their wallet and no other method than Apple Pay on websites than that is anti competitive.
But as it is, come on EU.
Nice try but you know that won't satisfy the EU. The EU will say that Apple is violating user's privacy rights by allowing this for other companies to have NFC access to people's phones.. It's too much.
I’m not sure if I’m reading it correctly, but the complaints could be that Apple restricts NFC for only Apple Pay not other platforms such as Android Pay, Samsung Pay or whateverPay.
If this is the case, then why doesn’t the EU go after Google and Samsung and tell them to open their platforms for iOS compatibility??
The EU regulators knows Apple doesn't force people into Apple Pay. Our app didn't have Apple Pay for the longest time and it just got implemented like a few months ago.
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That's perfectly within their right to do as a business. If the consumer wants to download a different OS to their device and modify the hardware and software as they see fit nothing is stopping them. they just wont be able to come back to Apple for service and support if something goes wrong. These companies are pretending like they have no options simply because Apple won't support things they didn't agree to support in the first place.
If you don't trust apple to create a safe and secure public API for the NFC, why do you trust apple to make other parts of iOS safe and secure?
Everytime some competition tries to make a digital payment app, they are forced to use QR codes and everyone laughs.
The same contactless locations can use google pay, samsung pay or apple pay. It’s not like Apple is using some advanced contactless system. That’s why the same readers works with android even if it doesn’t say it. It’s just a NFC payment system.
I wish the EU would investigate why my bank in Germany is still refusing to support ApplePay and is pushing its own contactless payment system (Sparkasse).
The EU have received complaints about potentially anti-competitive practises on Apple's part. The EU is investigating, namely finding out if companies have been obliged to integrate Apple Pay and/or had their apps rejected for being incompatible with Apple Pay. They are obliged to investigate such complaints.
This seems perfectly reasonable behaviour to me, as the EU is largely concerned with upholding fairness in competition.
I think people need to calm down a bit and wait for the EU's conclusions and recommendations before mouthing off. They haven't said anything like opening up the NFC chip or secure enclave should be done.
This seems perfectly reasonable behaviour to me, as the EU is largely concerned with upholding fairness in competition.
I think people need to calm down a bit and wait for the EU's conclusions and recommendations before mouthing off. They haven't said anything like opening up the NFC chip or secure enclave should be done.
I think it's just the EU regulators doing it's job... btw, i don't mean that Apples won't approve your app, it could mean delaying the approval, etc, etc... shenanigans that other big companies have pulled.
Now Apple probably doesn't do either because it's a waste of time, and they don't need to if they think they got a good product.
Intel (I believe) got busted in the past for delaying shipments for buyers that were wholly committed to Intel. Google got accused of de-ranking companies that don't spend on AdWords, etc.... The regulators still have to do their jobs and have to look into all the complaints or questions against the big companies and can't just go on reputation or appear to play favoritism.
All of the latest introductions-- Seven/11, CVS Pharmacy, they come out with terminals that are, naturally, compatible with Android Pay in a few of its flavors. The problem Android has is that there is no Android phone.There are 8 0r 10 makers. That's good too, but it's important that a shop that makes hardware and the software is not a "monopoly". Google played around with NFC, but they never got significant acceptance in the US. Apple came in and made a lot of terminals available for everyone. I don't know the situation in Europe, but that's what happened here.
"Let's store a credit card on a phone" is not a state of the art approach anyway... Europe, unlike the US, has a very adaptive payment infrastructure (Apple Pay was accepted in most stores for years for example). It would make sense to rethink the approach to payment in general -and preferably take it out of the hands of VISA/MasterCard.
https://bluecode.com/en/ is a solution that I use everyday on my iPhone. It's a good proof that NFC is not an essential function for secure payments or a must have for "convenient" payments.
With the PSD2 I would also see an option to directly trigger a SEPA transfer using an app without going through NFC... but that would require actual innovation. Something that the banking sector isn't doing on its own. (Hence the PSD2 directive)
What they are good at is complaining... about negative interest, Apple Pay, fintechs or whoever else takes something off their fat cake.
https://bluecode.com/en/ is a solution that I use everyday on my iPhone. It's a good proof that NFC is not an essential function for secure payments or a must have for "convenient" payments.
With the PSD2 I would also see an option to directly trigger a SEPA transfer using an app without going through NFC... but that would require actual innovation. Something that the banking sector isn't doing on its own. (Hence the PSD2 directive)
What they are good at is complaining... about negative interest, Apple Pay, fintechs or whoever else takes something off their fat cake.
Actually, opening the NFC components to other apps - *Pay or otherwise - would likely be a benefit for many users.
Apple doesn't have to waste billions doing business in the EU. And while you are right that the EU can force their will upon companies... it's not like they really win, or that Apple really loses. It just changes the cost of doing business there, which results in higher cost for products there. It's quite a simple concept. Congratulations EU... you win, higher cost products.
Actually, no, it's YOUR chip, and it REALLY SUCKS that not only does Apple lock you out of its functionality, but that people actually think a chip in YOUR phone belongs to Apple and not YOU.
What the heck? Your hardware should be YOURS to do with as you which. Many of us accept such restrictions as a price to pay for the otherwise high quality of Apple products, but it would be nice if the system were more open. Don't give in to thinking that your hardware is anything but yours, and remember that you being locked out of your own hardware is a FAULT, not a feature.