It’s doubtful banks will entice users away from Apple Pay instead of just dropping support for Apple Pay.
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World's First Apple Pay Alternative for iPhone Launches in Norway
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What you mean by “my country has an app”? It’s not a government-made app, is it? What’s the name of the app?
I think they mean MB Way (https://www.mbway.pt/). It's part of Multibanco, and they essentially have a monopoly on payment systems in Portugal. They run their own ATM network, their own payment network (similar to Visa, Mastercard), it works with all Portuguese banks, etc. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multibanco
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No, it has nothing to do with the government.
It's developed and ran by a company that runs an interbank network.
The app is named MBWAY from MB which comes from multibanco which started as an ATM network several decades ago.
I don't know about the app in this thread but it seems a somewhat similar context.
But from outside there's one large difference. MBWAY uses any common card, ViSA, debit, credit, MasterCard, whatever.
It's quite useful for several things.
It's developed and ran by a company that runs an interbank network.
The app is named MBWAY from MB which comes from multibanco which started as an ATM network several decades ago.
I don't know about the app in this thread but it seems a somewhat similar context.
But from outside there's one large difference. MBWAY uses any common card, ViSA, debit, credit, MasterCard, whatever.
It's quite useful for several things.
That’s great. It’s good to see competition in the back of someone else’s dime.
Apple should open up ApplePay on Android - it takes the heat off them regulation-wise and opens up a new revenue stream. Of course, I'd also say do the same for imessage and charge for it. Eventually they will plateau and this could be a good driver of growth and enable service lock-in, treat it like Apple Music on Android since there's precedence there.
Apple charges banks to use Apple Pay. It generates billions in revenue for them - that's why they locked out competition. There is zero chance that they will stop pursuing that revenue, if anything the competition will push apple to improve the features of Apple Wallet.
I'm not Norwegian, so I don't really care, however No Visa or Master Card 😳
Norwegian payment service Vipps has become the world's first company to launch a competing tap-to-pay solution to Apple Pay on iPhone, following Apple's agreement with European regulators to open up its NFC technology to third parties.
Starting December 9, Vipps users in Norway can make contactless payments in stores using their iPhones. The service initially supports customers of SpareBank 1, DNB, and over 40 other Norwegian banks, representing approximately 70% of Norwegian bank customers.
The launch follows the European Commission's July 2024 acceptance of legally binding commitments from Apple to open its mobile payments system to competitors. Under the agreement, Apple must provide free access to iPhone NFC functionality for third-party mobile wallets and allow users to set alternative payment apps as their default option.
Vipps' solution currently works with terminals that accept BankAxept cards, Norway's national payment system, covering more than 90% of payment terminals in the country. The company plans to expand support for Visa and Mastercard cards in the coming months, enabling worldwide payment capabilities before summer 2025.
The service allows users to make payments by holding their iPhone near a payment terminal, with authentication via Face ID, Touch ID, or device passcode. iPhone users can set Vipps as their default payment app and activate it by double-clicking the Side button, just as they would if they were using Apple Wallet and Apple Pay.
Vipps MobilePay, which emerged from a merger of Vipps from Norway and MobilePay from Denmark, plans to extend the tap-to-pay solution to Denmark, Finland, and Sweden in 2025, potentially paving the way for similar implementations by other payment providers across Europe.
Article Link: World's First Apple Pay Alternative for iPhone Launches in Norway
Why would anyone in Norway want to use this, rather than Apple Pay?
I guess it depends which side your bread is buttered.
As a competitor looking to enter the market, perhaps it’s a good thing because it at least means that you have a fighting chance.
As a consumer, I also recognise how Apple is able to leverage its user base and its ecosystem control to extract concessions from stakeholders that are often to my benefit. So it’s not that I am against open competition as a concept, but I do acknowledge that competition is sometimes about helping businesses more than the end user, and the outcome may not always be to my advantage, and I wish more people would admit to this.
That’s why I am an Apple user through and through. I believe in one optimised solution (again, made possible by Apple’s control over hardware, software and services) compared to multiple solutions which may each not work as well.
So at the end of the day, it’s less about choice, and more about what that choice means for me. If you tell me that more choice potentially means less banks supporting Apple Pay (on my watch), then yeah, I have a hard time seeing why that’s a good thing for me.
Wrong - it will remove yet another middleman (Apple, in this case).
You’re not living in the real world.
My App Store downloads were slow today, and the App Store app even crashed once.
Am I going to contact my internet service provider about it?
My Toshiba external hard disk’s file system wasn’t recognised anymore after macOS (yet again) borked its exFAT file system.
Do I contact Toshiba about it?
A card payment of mine recently was declined when trying to book a hotel using the Safari browser (not Apple Pay) on my Mac. And also, my iPhone recently failed to make payments at an in-store terminal three times over the last
Do I contact my operating system vendor about it?
Do I hope that my Toshiba or my ISP are allowed to charge Apple for their increased support costs?
When an NFC card payment from an app fails, you blame and/or contact the bank - it’s not rocket science.
Last but not least: Is my bank allowed to charge Apple for their higher support and development costs in supporting Apple Pay?
Why awful?
It’s just taking out the middleman.
You know what’s awful? Being forced to add your card to a third-party application/service provided by yet another middleman - just so that middleman (Apple) can charge a percentage of your transactions. And Apple charge way more than 0.0001%.
It’s not that Apple doesn’t deserve their cut - they do, when they provide a useful and secure service. But they don’t deserve it for merely gatekeeping access to NFC.
Wrong. The banks receive your payment data anyway.
But my banking apps don’t require location services - they don’t use them. Unlike Apple, which enable them by default and collect data:
“If you have Location Services turned on, the location of your device at the time you use it to make purchases in stores may be sent anonymously to Apple and will be used to help Apple Pay improve the accuracy of business names in the Wallet card transaction history, and may be retained in aggregate to improve Apple Maps, Apple Pay and Wallet.”
Quite the contrary.
The EU is working on eliminating such geoblocking - and that includes the App Store.
Apple did not “innovate” (invent) NFC technology.
Apple is an additional intermediary that’s extracting “concessions” (in this case money) are extracting money from payment transactions. Less middlemen extracting money means lower transaction costs - and prices.
They do. Europe has a competitive payment market with considerably lower interchange fees and costs to merchants for acceptance of payment cards. Wile the U.S. has much higher ones - ultimately to be passed on to consumers.
Additionally, Europe has also lead the way in combating card payment fraud through through EMV adoption, strong customer authentication etc.
I fail to see how a 0.15% cut that is exacted on the banks (rather than the merchants) is going to result in meaningfully lower prices for the customer. It's practically a rounding error on my receipt.
Also, are you are telling me that as a payment processing platform, VIPPs doesn't take a cut from anyone? It's a for-profit company (I am having a hard time locating information of its merchant fees on their website, which gives me an error message), and has reported an operating income for 2023, so that money has to come from somewhere.
As such, I find it funny that you are against Apple Pay acting as a middleman, but not other mobile payment standards such as VIPPS.
Then, Apple should file suit against DNB. If DNB wants an even playing field, then they have to provide it also.
Nothing managed by Google is even remotely as secure as Apple. For Google you are the product.
Apple main goal is customer’s satisfaction, because their revenue comes from customers who buy products and services.
Banks are a different world…
Actually in EU banks are actively pushing customers to use Apple Pay with in-app advertising (checked in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Italy ).
Exactly. But MacRumors population is quite peculiar: there are quite a lot of user who signed up just to bash Apple almost about everything. If you don’t like Apple (legit preferences) just buy something else.
No reason to ask Apple to stop being Apple.
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Would be great if this was made in all regions. With Apple Pay not available in my country, this would have been a good alternative.
Which country are you speaking about ? Apple Pay is available almost worldwide
No, Apple's technology is still in the chain and Apple will continue to bear the support costs when people (correctly or incorrectly) identify Apple's hardware or software as the source of a problem. Apple Pay does not charge additional fees to merchants or consumers for transactions. Merchants incur standard credit or debit card processing fees, which vary based on their agreements with payment processors. Vipps charges businesses a transaction fee of 2.39% plus €0.20 per transaction for its all-in-one checkout solution.
And add a new one. One we don't know we can trust. One with new fees. etc.
India. Have been waiting for a long time. Don't think it will be coming any time soon.
Agree, this quote from the article:
"We have fought for years to be able to compete on equal footing with Apple, and it feels almost surreal to finally be able to launch our very own solution," said Rune Garborg, CEO of Vipps MobilePay, in a statement on the company's website."
So where is their phone device if they fought so hard?
I'm sad for you, but you are a victim of a$$le marketing.
At the end of the year, the balance of both ($$ and banks) is prepared by the CFO.
Who would you think should pay for their support? A third party? It is obvious that a$$le must pay to support their products!
That doesn’t seem like all that attractive a fee compared to what Mastercard and Visa are charging. Someone remind me again how this is better compared to simply using Apple Pay + your debit card / credit card of choice, or are we going back to making generic motherhood statements about how competition is supposedly better for everyone?
Partly because we have our own home grown system: BankAxept
That is ubiquitous in Norway, and costs (the vendors) only a fraction of what they have to pay MasterCard, Visa, et.al.
Edit: This is the reason we don't always use Visa and MasterCard. Most cards in Norway - although equipped with MC or Visa - will use BankAxept for payments/withdrawals domestically. Vipps for business users' fees are closer to Visa and MC, though, but cheaper for private end users.
Just to make it clear: Even if this had worked for my bank, I'd most likely wouldn't use it. I detest DnB (the biggest owner of Vipps), and dislike Vipps (though it is convenient for sending relatively small amounts money** back and forth between family and friends).
** It's free to send up to NOK 5000 for private users (≈ USD 500, depending on conversion rates, at the moment closer to USD 450).
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