This is what happens when people who have no idea how a technology works are empowered to pass laws that affect that technology. Did anyone say that American Express had to open its credit card system to competitors when it was the only real global credit card system in the world? No, for the simple reason that people understood that competition meant that there would be other companies that would offer competing products if it was a profitable enterprise and competition would decide which cards would be competitive.
It seems that these German legislators have forgotten how competition works and are trying to legislate favorable outcomes for businesses that didn't have the foresight to enter into this arena. Payment systems are complex and intensely competitive and if they actually knew how many competitive payment systems are out there, besides cash, they might have had second thoughts about trying to legislate in what is a robust and amazingly competitive market. The fact that in this mode of epay Apple seems to have an advantage is absolutely meaningless when you look at the overall payments systems. They would be better off keeping Walmart out of the financial services market and attacking its monopoly practices than going after Apple because it has a good technological solution to the risk inherent in electronic payments.
Well, we're here and no way that there German legislators will pay us a bit of attention, but I hope that no one else thinks that this is a good idea, it is a waste of legislative resources, and their time would be better spent looking at illegal manipulation of LIBOR rates by Deutsches Bank and other European banks and its impact on consumer and corporate borrowing rates since that has had a significant impact on borrowing costs and illegal profits by those banks. But, hey, I get it, Apple is successful and nothing is better than going after a successful company, particularly one that doesn't pay massive bribes to those same legislators through campaign funding. Nothing changes.
