The Wallet App is a mess. It has been frustrating that I cannot put anything I want into my own wallet. I can understand why Apple is seeing more and more regulator attention on these things. They need to be more transparent and open.
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European Regulators Will Soon Approve Apple's Plan to Open Up Tap-to-Pay to Banks and Payment Providers
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How do you think redundancy works? You have multiple ways to do the same thing in different ways. This means if one gets compromised you can protect yourself by using one of the redundancy tools.
With one, you can’t do anything if compromised
Perhaps, or the regions/ nations. I would rather have Suica style system that can be used in the whole nation between the different providers. Or better yet all of EU.
Especially now that EU have mandated that the public transport network must be interoperable for the customer. So a person can take a train from Stockholm and get to Rome from one spot and ticket.
Perhaps Google and Apple just have terrible terms for it to be worth joining the wallet.
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It would have been much better if Apple had collaborated with the banks to create a unique secure app that makes Apple customers and banks happy.
If I have to open 4 different apps to use my CCs, this is a huge step backwards for users. I'm sure the banks will implement something as great as Zelle.
Mainly EU retailers, restaurants, shops, web-shops, etc., as Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc., automatically divert the payment to go through the big, international card payment services, like VISA and MasterCard, instead of making use of the national/local card payment services that are tied to most EU payment cards.
EU retailers and banks want to cut out the middlemen, like VISA, and make use of their own, much less expensive, local/national payment services.
Cutting out the international card payment service means that cost for a retailer to accept a payment from a customer using tap-to-pay is much lower.
These savings will see EU retailers earning more and/or EU customers paying less for goods/services as the payment fees are lower and all of the earnings from the fees stay in the EU or local country's economy.
This is especially important for smaller businesses that are all faced with having to accept tap-to-pay due to its overwhelming popularity here but high costs from tap-to-pay fees (thanks to Apple, Google and their deals with VISA, Mastercard, etc.).
Smaller retailers also pay much higher fees to make use of Apple Pay compared to big retailers as they don't have the same buying power when negotiating and thus have to pay much higher fees per payment.
In short, the EU doesn't want to send money to Apple and its international accomplices every time someone buys a bottle of water or a new car, and to cut out payment service middlemen, like VISA and Mastercard.
Sometimes I get scared reading about these fears you people say. I’m glad EU banks aren’t as terrible as in the USA, and that EU is pushing for greater interoperability between the different banks to discourage exclusive apps and encourage universal apps with a wide support base from multiple banks.
I’m interested in how this benefits users? I don’t want to open the Chase app specifically to pay something with my chase card.
I like just having one central location with all my credit cards. Which is what I use Apple Wallet for 99% of the time.
It’ll be like wanting to carry several wallets around in your pocket, each with separate cards in them.
I like just having one central location with all my credit cards. Which is what I use Apple Wallet for 99% of the time.
It’ll be like wanting to carry several wallets around in your pocket, each with separate cards in them.
People don’t understand the consumer side of it though. You only laid out the business side. Why would I want different payment apps for different physical retailers? People like having the convenience and lowest price. They could careless about the fee a retailer or bank pays. If I’m paying the same, WTF do I care?
It's even gone as far as VISA launching a "VISA Cashback" customer loyalty app/service in several EU countries that incentivizes card holders to make sure they always use VISA when paying. It then rewards them with small monetary payouts if they register their payment cards in the VISA Cashback loyalty app.
Why?
Because many banks will phase out local payment services if card holders only use VISA which, long-term, would give VISA an indirect monopoly on nearly all payment cards and tap-to-pay payments.
We'd end up with nothing but VISA and Mastercard.
But this new EU legislation will most likely prevent this if most future tap-to-pay avoid paying through Apple Pay/VISA/Mastercard.
Why?
Because many banks will phase out local payment services if card holders only use VISA which, long-term, would give VISA an indirect monopoly on nearly all payment cards and tap-to-pay payments.
We'd end up with nothing but VISA and Mastercard.
But this new EU legislation will most likely prevent this if most future tap-to-pay avoid paying through Apple Pay/VISA/Mastercard.
Because the local payment services charge a much lower fee per tap-to-pay payment than Apple(Pay)/VISA/Mastercard does.
The EU retailers and banks don't take the Apple Pay/VISA/Mastercard fee out of their earnings/revenue. The fees gets added to the end customer price on all the products and services sold.
Cutting out unnecessary middlemen always lowers costs for consumers (or increases earnings for retailers if they don't pass the savings on to consumers. But that also benefits EU society at large over sending the money to Apple's tax haven in Ireland, or to VISA or Mastercard).
How cute that you think these retailers are going to lower prices instead of taking the margin. Good grief.
Some people don't want Apple to have competition because it can hurt Apple's profits and therefore the stock price.
Others probably support the idea of users having fewer choices and think it's cool that some countries can decide what apps their citizens are allowed to use
China orders Apple to remove Meta apps after “inflammatory” posts about president
WhatsApp, Threads, Telegram, and Signal removed from Apple App Store in China.arstechnica.com
Has nothing to do with that, I purposely bought into Apple‘s system because of the ecosystem and cohesion they offer. The government forcing them to change how their software works when there actually is completion (purchase an Android) is problematic to people. The market spoke and people overwhelmingly choose Apples products. It’s not like they were once and open and closed it down, it was like this from the beginning.
Banks will end up all having separate apps and it‘ll ruin why Apple Pay exists for users.
What you are missing is that apple is that different "app", Apple Pay gave consumers in EU around 1-5 seconds faster payment with a lot of reduced functionality But that's all. Apple Pay is not even close to catch up to that loss of functionality (this has more to do with the state of the USA banking that's often 20+ year behind eu and 5-10+ year behind Asia and some parts of Africa and south America (world?) when it comes to instant pay/interbank transfers and other fun stuff that's often free)
So what do EU consumer have to gain by gaining access to NFC? Well 1-5 seconds and a lot of functionality that we have had access to for sometimes more then a decade.
Banks screw and harm customers and society all the time.
Yes, it makes sense because it’s based on endless examples.
Well, that’s called government overreach. And you seem to have a problem with Apple complying with that only because it’s coming from the Chinese government. On the other hand, you have a governance institution in the EU dictating to Apple. So how do we determine which of these government ‘interventions’ or ‘interferences’ is good? The government ‘protecting’ its citizens, or the government giving its citizens ‘choice’?Others probably support the idea of users having fewer choices and think it's cool that some countries can decide what apps their citizens are allowed to use
China orders Apple to remove Meta apps after “inflammatory” posts about president
WhatsApp, Threads, Telegram, and Signal removed from Apple App Store in China.
Nah, that’s not it. Right now, everything is in one place. Double-click the side button and you get access to all of your cards. It’s a good user experience.
Now, banks will withdraw from Apple Pay and require that you open their app for payment. This will save them money, but none of the cost-savings will be passed on to the customer.
Sure, can now map a single bank/card to the side button now, but then you’ll need to open the respective app for all of your other cards.
So you go from one location for all your cards to many locations. The banks save money, but the customer doesn’t.
The reply JUST BEFORE happens to shout out how in Norway banks are already getting out of Apple Pay.As nihilistic as I am about them opening up payments, I don’t see it happening.
NFC/Tap/Apple Pay/Google Pay is so heavily marketed and used nowadays. When it was in its infancy, I’d argue otherwise.
Banks are not going to block access to Apple Pay provisioning and disable cards. Clients would be royally p*ssed and probably close their accounts. Taking away conveniences rarely goes well.
That said, American users: keep an eye on Early Warning Systems and their Paze system. EWS has a very, very close relationship with banks in the US. They are the company behind Zelle.
Paze for Business | Merchant Payment Solutions
Support sales growth and build stronger customer relationships with the bank wallet from Paze: Seamless integration, simplified checkout, 150+ million cards.www.paze.com
Not surprising really, it’s just like that sweet free Delta retro games emulator: it’s on the AppStore in the Americas, it’s on AltStore behind a fee (for the store itself) in the EU
I really hope that doesn’t arrive to the west, or at least under rules that “they have to be on both Apple Wallet and elsewhere, can’t inconvenience customers on purpose”.
Or if they do, then only on Android or something, that way a customer really has a choice: do I want a centralized contactless wallet experience? Or do I want a “I can do with my phone whatever I want” bunch of separate wallets and stores experience?
Then why the hell they didn’t just go for a regulation the likes of: “hey Apple, you have to execute your transactions by proximity and ordered by cost, meaning you start the process with completely local venues and if not possible the next tier multinational venues (i.e whatever England and the rest of the EU do business) and if not possible international networks…”
That would have changed nothing for the user, nothing to implement for businesses and the vendors, everything gets cheaper fees by decree, done.
…No, instead they go around the globe to knock on the neighbor’s door
I don't care about that, and I doubt many do. I care about the vulnerabilities and leaks that will happen because these companies don't put thought into their systems.
Eventually these will be available everywhere and companies will stop participating in the safe and privacy-respecting solutions, so "just don't use them" won't be an option.
You did not fix anything. The EU clearly seems prone to lobbyists and handouts for their loyalty.
I see both pros and cons.
On one hand, I have a number of payment apps that require you to scan a QR code, and I am guessing this is because they lack access to the iPhone's NFC chip. That said, it is dead cheap and easy to just print out a QR code and paste it on the wall. I have a shortcut on my lock screen that launches a mobile wallet app and it still feels slow and cumbersome.
On the other hand, I don't think anyone here can deny the convenience of Apple Pay, especially when your bank is on board, and especially when you are able to pay directly using your Apple Watch (very handy when taking public transport). I guess the genuine concern here is that given the opportunity, banks may decide to withdraw support for Apple Pay, in favour of pushing users towards their own banking / mobile wallet apps.
What used to be one unified solution (eg: being able to manage all my credit cards in one interface) may now become me having to toggle between multiple banking apps, depending on which card I want to use. That's also assuming their mobile payment apps even have a smartwatch version.
Competition is good only when it gives the user more of what they want, rather than saddling them with more problems that they have to contend with. It helps businesses, but I am not really seeing the benefit to the end user and I feel this is one of those proposed changes where there is no point trying to sugarcoat things and pretend that the customer will come out better for it because honestly, I am not really seeing how my shopping experience will be enhanced by this change, when I never had an issue with Apple Pay in the first place.
I am unclear as to the benefits for consumers of this move by the EU. The last time the EU did something in this space (severely restricted interchange fees) merchant prices to the consumer didn't fall a single penny, the protestations of big business that it would be otherwise notwithstanding.
That this wasn't the solution should tell you all you need to know about the actual purpose of these regulations.
Because Apple charges a fee and you are not paying it, so the banks have to pay it. Apple has no business demanding it. Open NFC for all and if people still prefer Apple Pay, go ahead and charge for it. It should not hold the banks hostage.