EU Regulators Accept Apple Commitments to Open NFC Access to Rivals

[jarman92]

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 ❤️ )

You can also pay with cards everywhere in the US, and we get points and benefits. Ironically the US is far more pro-consumer than the EU in this space.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Like the current wallet app?

Yes, but the banks pay only for the development of the application, with no transaction fees.

 

[Ctrlos]

You can also pay with cards everywhere in the US, and we get points and benefits. Ironically the US is far more pro-consumer than the EU in this space.

Its just a shame that 1% of US transactions are contactless compared to 90% in the UK and Australia I'd be amazed if there weren't still huge numbers of businesses using those old carbon-copy machines for credit card receipts!

 

[Sophisticatednut]

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?

Electronic ID( EU national ID, EU national Drivers license or passport) that we have had forever in EU but the Apple wallet is extremely slow in supporting anything like this.

The numerous of public transport services that can’t show their tickets in the wallet. Etc etc.

You can also pay with cards everywhere in the US, and we get points and benefits. Ironically the US is far more pro-consumer than the EU in this space.

…. That’s the banks who does that. EU doesn’t mandate the amount of bonus points you get for using a credit card.

U.S. banks can only do that tho because you are free to have a much larger fee that the merchants need to pay.

 

[jarman92]

Its just a shame that 1% of US transactions are contactless compared to 90% in the UK and Australia I'd be amazed if there weren't still huge numbers of businesses using those old carbon-copy machines for credit card receipts!

Those are just entirely made-up numbers and aren’t even close to correct.

See, e.g., https://www.cnbc.com/select/mastercard-survey-contactless-payments/

 

[jcato77]

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

It must be WAY easier to switch banks in the EU than other countries. All my auto-pay and automatic deductions and then direct deposit make it almost impossible to move in a quick amount of time. I.e. it takes weeks to do it's not a simple thing so I'm not sure using that as an excuse/reason is a viable one.

 

[Ctrlos]

It must be WAY easier to switch banks in the EU than other countries. All my auto-pay and automatic deductions and then direct deposit make it almost impossible to move in a quick amount of time. I.e. it takes weeks to do it's not a simple thing so I'm not sure using that as an excuse/reason is a viable one.

In the UK its dead easy. We have this 'open banking' where you can just switch accounts and everything transfers over by itself. You can also link your account to your Wallet to see the balance on your cards without opening the seperate apps.

 

[armandxp]

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.

I agree. All of this anticompetitive behavior is just a disguise for who’s greasing who’s pockets in the EU. Same as lobbying Washington here to get things passed that are of benefit to mega banks and corporations.

I’m so sick of reading about this every day on my favorite blogs, I wish Apple would just open up everything 100% and just let it be the wild Wild West. Those of us with half a brain would know what to avoid and everyone else would be calling AppleCare to complain about things not working or broken because of all of this mess.

None of this is even worth arguing about on here anymore. It’s boring to read and it doesn’t matter what people say, the government is going to do what ever they want to do in the end to benefit ‘them’ and their donors, and disguise it as ‘for the people’. Vote with your wallet if you’re happy or unhappy with a company, and how they run it. Simple as that. Just my 2 cents.

 

[J_Eric]

"Apple has until July 25 to implement the changes." Of this year? Two weeks?! I hope that Apple has the code tested and ready to go, then.

 

[LowKeyed]

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.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the poster you responded to (switz said:) was talking about individuals or organizations that happen to fall inside European borders when they said "The EU will destroy...." I'm fairly sure they were referring to EU legislator/regulators.

I think it is incredibly obvious that every bit of technology incorporated in an Apple product is not a ground up creation of Apple engineers. That technology cannot be sourced from a single economic/geographic area. Innovation doesn't care about borders, we have politicians for that.

Apple didn't "standardize the form", consumer sentiment did. You are correct that prior to Apple entering the market in 2007 there was less consensus on the best format of a cell phone. Many of the brightest most respected names in the industry dismissed the iPhone as a product doomed to failure because it didn't adhere to one of the existing forms. Apparently, those experts were wrong and the iPhone supported consumer demand pretty well. Not to the extent that the iPhone itself ever gained a majority share of the cell phone market, but the format (and the concept) does. Something similar happened with telephones in the 1880s, there were many TX/RX formats available prior to Ericsson gaining consumer acceptance for the unified handset as opposed to the various split system available at the time. (NOTE: Ericsson wasn't the only one doing it, they just did it well enough to get the credit.) By the early 1900s, almost all new telephones used a unified handset, and for the most part still do today (speaker phones being a notable exception).

It is simply not possible that there is only one company "attempting anything interesting...", the more likely scenario is that no company has developed/released anything disruptive, recently. Most innovation is incremental and almost unobservable, rarely is it noticeable in a meaningful way. I don't think that should be seen as an indicator that no one is trying.

 

[LowKeyed]

I agree. All of this anticompetitive behavior is just a disguise for who’s greasing who’s pockets in the EU. Same as lobbying Washington here to get things passed that are of benefit to mega banks and corporations.

I’m so sick of reading about this every day on my favorite blogs, I wish Apple would just open up everything 100% and just let it be the wild Wild West. Those of us with half a brain would know what to avoid and everyone else would be calling AppleCare to complain about things not working or broken because of all of this mess.

None of this is even worth arguing about on here anymore. It’s boring to read and it doesn’t matter what people say, the government is going to do what ever they want to do in the end to benefit ‘them’ and their donors, and disguise it as ‘for the people’. Vote with your wallet if you’re happy or unhappy with a company, and how they run it. Simple as that. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, reading about it makes me sick, but mostly just sad. I would rather Apple went the other way. I want them to say, "This is the product we make and this is how it works, if that is something you are interested in, we welcome you as a customer, if not please purchase one of our competitors products." If the EU or any other governing bodies don't like it, ban them from doing business in your area of governance. I'm an Apple share holder so it would hurt my position some, but at least I could buy a product designed and developed by engineers and not bureaucrats and politicians.

I don't want it to go the other way, because I know a lot of people with less than half a brain who would call me instead of AppleCare. 😁

 

[mwd25]

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

Sounds like someone has never heard of Motorola or Intel, to name just two American companies. The Moto Razr was one of, if not the most popular phones prior to Iphone. And the Ipod was designed to use AAC when it was first released.

 

[Ctrlos]

Sounds like someone has never heard of Motorola or Intel, to name just two American companies. The Moto Razr was one of, if not the most popular phones prior to Iphone. And the Ipod was designed to use AAC when it was first released.

Let’s be honest, we could be back and forth until we get to the Mayflower.

The point was that with a variety of companies comes a variety of innovation. Now we have Apple who have done little to innovate phone design since the iPhone 4 and Google, a company that uses Android as a way to hoover up data.

Now phones are a standardised platform, the innovation however comes in the form of software and having one company act as the sole gatekeeper on that for a quarter of the population of the planet isn’t good for anyone no matter how benevolent they make themselves out to be.

 

[Ctrlos]

There

I could be wrong, but I don't think the poster you responded to (switz said:) was talking about individuals or organizations that happen to fall inside European borders when they said "The EU will destroy...." I'm fairly sure they were referring to EU legislator/regulators.

I think it is incredibly obvious that every bit of technology incorporated in an Apple product is not a ground up creation of Apple engineers. That technology cannot be sourced from a single economic/geographic area. Innovation doesn't care about borders, we have politicians for that.

Apple didn't "standardize the form", consumer sentiment did. You are correct that prior to Apple entering the market in 2007 there was less consensus on the best format of a cell phone. Many of the brightest most respected names in the industry dismissed the iPhone as a product doomed to failure because it didn't adhere to one of the existing forms. Apparently, those experts were wrong and the iPhone supported consumer demand pretty well. Not to the extent that the iPhone itself ever gained a majority share of the cell phone market, but the format (and the concept) does. Something similar happened with telephones in the 1880s, there were many TX/RX formats available prior to Ericsson gaining consumer acceptance for the unified handset as opposed to the various split system available at the time. (NOTE: Ericsson wasn't the only one doing it, they just did it well enough to get the credit.) By the early 1900s, almost all new telephones used a unified handset, and for the most part still do today (speaker phones being a notable exception).

It is simply not possible that there is only one company "attempting anything interesting...", the more likely scenario is that no company has developed/released anything disruptive, recently. Most innovation is incremental and almost unobservable, rarely is it noticeable in a meaningful way. I don't think that should be seen as an indicator that no one is trying.

There is nothing wrong with standardised phones. The point I was trying to make is that many competitors breeds innovation. Now hardware has become standardised we turn to software. Having only 2 companies act as gatekeepers for the thousands of developers out there even if they’re not currently hurting anyone doing so isn’t good in the long run.

When faced with competition Apple normally pull their finger out. We saw it with iOS7. We saw it with the M1. We’re seeing it with AI. Having multiple app portals means Apple has to up its game which benefits everyone. Tl;dr they should be using a carrot instead of a stick.

 

[Ctrlos]

Those are just entirely made-up numbers and aren’t even close to correct.

See, e.g., https://www.cnbc.com/select/mastercard-survey-contactless-payments/

They’re actually 5 years old but still. The USA used to be years behind the rest of the world on this stuff. They were only just getting NFC payments after it had rolled out across Europe. In Japan you can pay for things on your Nintendo console using a contactless card and the console’s built in NFC reader!

But in terms of geographical area Asia and Europe are a lot denser than the US and it’s easier to roll things out.

 

[surferfb]

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

I've been frequently told switching to Android is practically impossible if you're an iPhone user, which is a major reason why the DMA is needed to police a phone manufacturer with <30% of the market in the EU, but customers are going to SWITCH BANKS if the bank stops supporting Apple Pay?

This just shows the DMA is not pro consumer, but pro business. There are a few cases where that overlaps, but when push comes to shove, the EU regulators are going to work for European businesses, not European consumers. See also: DMA making Google search worse, browsing the internet being such a terrible experience in Europe, etc.

 

[jarman92]

This just shows the DMA is not pro consumer, but pro business.

Pro-European-business

 

[I7guy]

[…] Now we have Apple who have done little to innovate phone design since the iPhone 4 […]

My version of the above grossly generalized opinion is that it is absolute rubbish.

 

[I7guy]

There


There is nothing wrong with standardised phones. The point I was trying to make is that many competitors breeds innovation. Now hardware has become standardised we turn to software. Having only 2 companies act as gatekeepers for the thousands of developers out there even if they’re not currently hurting anyone doing so isn’t good in the long run.

You don’t believe out of the hundreds of cell phone manufacturers some innovation should be found somewhere.

When faced with competition Apple normally pull their finger out. We saw it with iOS7. We saw it with the M1. We’re seeing it with AI. Having multiple app portals means Apple has to up its game which benefits everyone. Tl;dr they should be using a carrot instead of a stick.

The people who contribute to apples bottom line might disagree.

 

[jarman92]

Electronic ID( EU national ID, EU national Drivers license or passport) that we have had forever in EU but the Apple wallet is extremely slow in supporting anything like this.

The numerous of public transport services that can’t show their tickets in the wallet. Etc etc.

Do you know of any technical reason those gov'ts and transport services aren't integrating with Apple Wallet? Because it seems like that's their recalcitrance, not Apple's.

U.S. banks can only do that tho because you are free to have a much larger fee that the merchants need to pay.

Absolutely. But the point remains—in the US, I get to use cards/contactless everywhere and still get great perks from my bank/issuer.

 

[hans1972]

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

It's bad if you want the traditional banks to loose as a revenge for providing bad service for 100-200 years.

This will favour banks all over Europe.

 

[hans1972]

When will the US hit the EU with a range of tariffs.

It will happen when/if Trump is elected president. He really hates the EU and will easily be convinced that the EU is only targeting American companies.

 

[hans1972]

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

What if all the banks in one country is behind one payment solution like in Norway?

 

[hans1972]

Surely in this scenario the NFC cards would be integrated into the wallet app just like Apple Pay cards? That’s what the wallet app is for, after all.

But I don’t think any bank would ever drop Apple Pay unless the alternative was just as good. If my bank started making it difficult to use contactless payments, I’d just switch to another bank.

Norway's largest bank never supported Apple Pay and all the banks they buy, stops supporting Apple Pay. Instead they have a competing solution which now will gain marketshare.

There is no way that these banks now will add support for Apple Pay.

 

[hans1972]

I think its fair gatekeepers do not have ability block competion by not allowing using their payment tecnology. Thank you EU for open access to all rivals roo.

It's fair when the competition is horrible companies like banks.