EU Regulators Accept Apple Commitments to Open NFC Access to Rivals

[Michael Scrip]

The German bank "Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken" (over 30million customers) already announced that they will use this. I'm looking forward to test how well it works.
It will be hard to convince me, since I love Apple Pay.

So instead of using "Apple Pay" you'll be using "Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Pay"

What's the difference? Is there anything you're missing from Apple Pay?

Will you have to use the Volksbanken wallet? And will it do all the things that the Apple Wallet does already? Or will you still have to use Apple Wallet for other things like tickets and such?

 

[LenardG]

I really hope this will not mean that every bank will have their own app they want to use and so when I double click the side button, I cannot browse my cards and pay, but instead need to select one default app and launch others by hand.

I mean, I do like that payment providers will be able to use the iPhone hardware to make payments. But when they say the default wallet app will be replaceable, I just fear every bank will want their own app there. Which is not something I would really like to see.

When using Apple Pay, the best thing is actually all cards in the same app/place. I would much rather see extensibility there, than different wallet apps, which sounds like a nightmare.

(I have several different banks in use, because business cards and personal cards and also loyalty cards with different stores ... I prefer all of them in one place, instead of separate apps for everyone)

 

[Michael Scrip]

I just fear every bank will want their own app, which is not something I really like. Using Apple Pay the best thing was all cards in the same app/place. I have several different banks in use, because business cards and personal cards and also loyalty cards with different stores... I prefer all of them in one place, instead of separate apps for everyone.

Exactly.

It's nice having one wallet with multiple cards, tickets, etc.

But if every bank, store, airline, restaurant, etc starts using their own app/wallet... you're gonna need multiple wallets to hold all those things.

Progress?

🤔

 

[LowKeyed]

Also, if a bank implements an inefficient or laggy wallet, customers will be able to switch bank

Yes, exactly. Banks are notorious for putting customer needs/wants right up front and before their own interest. I'm sure any bank would issue apologies for a crappy implementation/execution of an in-house system and jump right back onto ApplePay or Apple Wallet. /s

One could argue that it is in the banks interest to create systems/products that customers want. However, it doesn't seem to be in vogue to allow consumer interest to drive product design/decisions anymore.

 

[Zest28]

Cool, so now we are going to have Samsung and Garmin Pay on the iPhone but Samsung and Garmin don’t have to allow Apple on their devices?

 

[Welcomeback]

So instead of using "Apple Pay" you'll be using "Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Pay"

What's the difference? Is there anything you're missing from Apple Pay?

Will you have to use the Volksbanken wallet? And will it do all the things that the Apple Wallet does already? Or will you still have to use Apple Wallet for other things like tickets and such?

almost every giant German bank dont use Visa and MC, they only have EC as debit card. apple didn't allowed EC for they wallet until recently.
the banks couldn't even get access to the nfc to offer customers a alternative and then began a chain of complaints to the EU watchdogs. now they seem that they won

 

[Robert.Walter]

Yes, exactly. Banks are notorious for putting customer needs/wants right up front and before their own interest. I'm sure any bank would issue apologies for a crappy implementation/execution of an in-house system and jump right back onto ApplePay or Apple Wallet. /s

One could argue that it is in the banks interest to create systems/products that customers want. However, it doesn't seem to be in vogue to allow consumer interest to drive product design/decisions anymore.

Just as banks were slow to implement or blocked Apple Pay for years, because they didn’t like the Apple fee, thus inconveniencing clients, so will they take whatever path cuts costs or increases profits client desires or convenience be damned.

 

[Michael Scrip]

almost every giant German bank dont use Visa and MC, they only have EC as debit card. apple didn't allowed EC for they wallet until recently.
the banks couldn't even get access to the nfc to offer customers a alternative and then began a chain of complaints to the EU watchdogs. now they seem that they won

I see, thanks!

😊

 

[Robert.Walter]

almost every giant German bank dont use Visa and MC, they only have EC as debit card. apple didn't allowed EC for they wallet until recently.
the banks couldn't even get access to the nfc to offer customers a alternative and then began a chain of complaints to the EU watchdogs. now they seem that they won

Every German bank using eurocard is using MC because EC is owned by and is just a brand name of MC.

Many European banks delayed activation of Apple Pay as long as they could, or only made it available on credit but not debit cards to retain interchange fees.

In Switzerland, this was looked into by the competition authority (after a consortium of banks tried to launch their own lousy but more profitable payment system, Twint, and tried to buy time by slow walking Apple Pay on credit and dead walking AP on debit) and eventually banks upgraded to NFC visa and MC debit cards and rolled out Apple pay more broadly.

I noticed lately that ATMs in Switzerland in general now allow activation of service by using Apple Pay (but still require entering a PIN on the atm which is outmoded and less secure).

 

[Abazigal]

So instead of using "Apple Pay" you'll be using "Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Pay"

What's the difference? Is there anything you're missing from Apple Pay?

Will you have to use the Volksbanken wallet? And will it do all the things that the Apple Wallet does already? Or will you still have to use Apple Wallet for other things like tickets and such?

That’s really the million dollar question. People talk up a huge deal about more choice and competition, but are surprisingly light on details as to just how the end user experience will actually be any better than the current arrangement where we have one mobile payment option that aggregates all our credit cards, and which we can freely access by double-tapping a button on our phones and Apple Watches.

I sometimes wonder if people here are more enamoured with the idea of sticking it to Apple, than they are about actually ensuring a better experience for the end user.

 

[JustSomebody12]

Yes, exactly. Banks are notorious for putting customer needs/wants right up front and before their own interest

And customers will leave that bank and open a bank account in another one.

I think most banks will stick to Apple Pay, though.

Is Apple better at developing a wallet app?

Almost surely, but this doesn't change that competition could be useful, especially in a sector where I can see no true challenger to the iOS ecosystem

 

[GrayFlannel]

This will be fun. I have creditcards from 3 different banks myself plus another one from my employer.
If all of them start using different apps and I can only set one as the default for double clicking the side button, this will get very annoying. Right now its double clicking while iPhone is locked and the quickly swiping to the right card.

A bank is not in the business to lose customers, so if a bank makes a change which you feel is inconvenient then apparently they made the decision that you are no longer a targeted customer. You in return have full control to decide to switch phones or banks.

 

[cfountain72]

Cannot wait for people here to be mad and angry that other apps can use NFC !

I think perhaps you misunderstand the source of the frustration. Allowing others to use the NFC tech is great. Forcing a company to allow it is not.
The minute level of detail necessary for compliance in this document is depressing. It'd be like, "The oil change dipstick shall be on the right hand side of the motor as seen from the front of the vehicle. It shall be colored 'School Bus Yellow (Hex #FFD800)', and shall be placed no more than 0.25 meters from the inner edge of the engine compartment. The dipstick shall require a slightly firm, though not too firm, of a pull to remove from the receptacle...."

Coming soon...."Why is Photos the default location for storing Photos? That's anti-competitive! The User should get to choose the default app from a list of approved Apps upon initial setup."

The iPhone setup process in the EU will eventually take roughly half an hour....and then they will complain that it is not quick enough and that Apple needs to make it as quicker or be fined for being anti-competitive.

 

[cocky jeremy]

EU: Where companies can just be given others work for free.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

It's nice having one wallet with multiple cards, tickets, etc.

It would have been much better for everyone if the banks paid Apple to develop a single application that all banks could use.

 

[Daku93]

It would have been much better for everyone if the banks paid Apple to develop a single application that all banks could use.

Like the current wallet app?

 

[.wojtek]

I've been in favour of every EU ruling so far but this is one that I don't think anyone will want. If every bank starts forcing its users to use their own app for contactless payments just to save the 0.15% in Apple Pay fees then nobody will use them. It will become more convenient (and less secure) to just carry a physical wallet again. With any luck it will be EU-only.

However opening up NFC in general is long overdue. Being able to switch Focus modes by tapping an NFC sticker or spoofing amiibo tags will be more welcome.

Before the EU card operators charged 2-3% (and they still do in the US hence popularity of all pseudo 'benefits')...then EU obliged them to slash charges and they are now about 0,1%... no dumb 'benefits' but you can easily pay with card virtually everywhere (sans Germany... Germany is special ❤️ )

 

[.wojtek]

Exactly.

It's nice having one wallet with multiple cards, tickets, etc.

But if every bank, store, airline, restaurant, etc starts using their own app/wallet... you're gonna need multiple wallets to hold all those things.

Progress?

🤔

magic... on android you can have both... and multiple "wallets" or card handlers (see Curve, though it doesn't do NFC...)

 

[rictus007]

This will be fun. I have creditcards from 3 different banks myself plus another one from my employer.
If all of them start using different apps and I can only set one as the default for double clicking the side button, this will get very annoying. Right now its double clicking while iPhone is locked and the quickly swiping to the right card.

I think the idea is to have a multiple apps that mimic the capacity of apple wallet. So other and apple can make extra dollars (actually euros). So this is not about making this more convenient for the end-user but for EU’s Banks.

 

[switz]

Interesting thought on competition. Neil Armstrong is looking out the LEM window and suddenly realized the system to get off the moon was made by "lowest" bidder. O f course he did have a cynide pill when all else failed....

The EU will destroy innovation by forcing successful companies that spent millions developing a product to give it away to their locals who apparently would be challenged to get out of a wet paper bag...

 

[Zest28]

I think the idea is to have a multiple apps that mimic the capacity of apple wallet. So other and apple can make extra dollars (actually euros). So this is not about making this more convenient for the end-user but for EU’s Banks.

This should never happen because Apple has patents on Apple Pay which the EU has now declared void basically as Apple is forced to give it to everybody for free.

 

[sflagel]

Excellent news. I look forward to money services like Revolut and Wize to offer transfer between individuals by tapping phones.

Of course a hardware maker should not be able to charge undue tariffs, like they did in the Middle Ages.

 

[jarman92]

I still have yet to hear a single argument for why this is necessary. What could anyone possibly offer in a third-party app that isn’t already available in Apple Wallet?

 

[jarman92]

I think the idea is to have a multiple apps that mimic the capacity of apple wallet. So other and apple can make extra dollars (actually euros). So this is not about making this more convenient for the end-user but for EU’s Banks.

Thank god the European Commission has fearlessly stood up for the poor, downtrodden financial sector.

 

[Ctrlos]

The EU will destroy innovation by forcing successful companies that spent millions developing a product to give it away to their locals who apparently would be challenged to get out of a wet paper bag...

Apple got rich on the back of european innovations...

Nokia and (Sony) Ericsson gave the cellphone market the shot in the arm it needed in the early 2000's.
The MP3 was developed by the Fraunhofer institute in Germany
ARM Architecture was developed in the UK
Trumpf, the only company on the planet that manufactures the UV machines for nanometer chip production is dutch
The WWW technology that facilitated public access to the internet was created in the UK

The phone market in 2006 was rich with all sorts of models and ideas being developed all the time. If anything Apple killed innovation in the arena by standardising the form. And now Nothing, the only company attempting anything interesting with smartphones operates out of London.