Australian Regulators Prevent Banks From Collectively Bargaining With Apple Over Apple Pay

[sudo1996]

You are probably one of those people that also think the Apple Watch is a failure.

I don't know if it's a failure in terms of sales, but if you mean as a product, yes. It doesn't serve much of a purpose, and the only 2 people I know who have one (out of a tech-savvy family and half the UC Berkeley CS department) say it sucks. Plus it takes up the one spot on my arm where I'd otherwise have a nice-looking analog watch or a cheap and durable digital watch.
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The company that said screw you to the FBI? Yes I would trust that company.

Or you can trust neither Apple nor the FBI. Well, I at least trust them more than Google, MSFT, and most foreign companies.

 

[kdarling]

If the banks were serious about supporting Apple Pay alongside their own payment system, why then does my bank, NAB, not support Android Pay either?

Good point.

Every time I hear the words "increased competition and consumer choice" from a bank, cable company, media company, telecom, or insurer, I know they are flat out lying.

Kind of like hearing the words "we're not in it for the money" from a super high profit margin consumer electronics company.

We've been using contactless payments for many years now. Apple is entitled to get a return on its NFC technology, but our banks have spent billions upon billions of dollars rolling out contractless payments nation-wide, there needs to be some negotiation.

It's not even Apple's NFC technology. They didn't invent any of it. They simply rebranded EMVCo standards under the name Apple Pay.

On a related note, is there any "ongoing" cost to Apple for Apple Pay? For example, does it talk to Apple servers every time you do a transaction or does it work completely offline like Paywave does? If it's the latter, then why does Apple deserve money per transaction in the first place?

Excellent question, since for contactless payments, Apple's servers are not involved.

Apple should only charge once for provisioning the token that is sent to them from the bank's token vault. (And if Apple let banks provision their own tokens, even that Apple intervention would not be necessary. But Apple likes acting as the gateway, as that way they can sell banks access to Apple's customers.)

 

[Rajincajuns]

As an Australian, an Apple and Commonwealth Bank customer - I'm actually disappointed at this. CBA introduced a mobile NFC payment solution back in 2011 because they were tired of waiting around for tech companies.

Now that Apple has decided they're good and ready, they've blocked NFC access to anyone who doesn't jump on board with *THEIR* scheme and pay a % of the transactions.

Commonwealth (and others) have invested hundreds of millions into this technology - now completely moot just because Apple says so.

I get that it's Apple's hardware, but their attitude is that the hardware can only be used by Apple's payment service and no one else's. What next - you can't make phone calls unless it's through Apple's own VoIP service?

It's Orwellian and it's worse for Apple customers in the long run.

This is why apple products r the most secure. Because Apple wants to keep it that way to protect its consumers

 

[kdarling]

This is why apple products r the most secure. Because Apple wants to keep it that way to protect its consumers

More like Apple wants to keep NFC payments to itself both to protect the new revenue stream it gets for gating banks' customers' cards, and as yet another way to lock iOS users into an Apple ecosystem, and to lock out competitors.

In this case it seems unnecessary, though, if people are right about how bad the banks' own payment apps are. If Apple's app is best, then it'll be used most.

(There's no security risk if Apple allowed other NFC payment methods to be registered with the Secure Element. Apple vets apps anyway.)