The European Union continues to act against the market power of foreign technology companies, and now accuses Apple Pay of abusing its dominant position for its exclusive use of the iPhone’s NFC . This could lead to fines and force Apple to open the NFC of its devices to any developer.
After its previous investigation, the European Commission has made the formal accusation , since it considers that the competition laws are being violated. The fundamental problem is that apps can’t use the iPhone’s NFC to make payments , forcing banks and other businesses to join Apple Pay.
This does not happen on Android, since those banks that are not interested in Google Pay have the possibility of sending payments from their own app. NFC contactless payments are not blocked on Android , reinforcing suspicions towards Apple.
The Commission considers that the high market share of the iPhone within the European Union forces anyone to use its contactless payment system, and that this way of favoring Apple Pay is illegal.
As a first step in the process, Apple will now be able to make allegations against the accusation , so the case will still take time to generate consequences.
In addition, the European Union will study separately the restrictions or denials when accessing Apple Pay , as some companies believe that they have not been allowed to enter to prevent them from competing against Apple itself.
Let us remember that since the introduction of Apple Pay, the multinational has been expanding in the banking business: in the United States it offers the Apple Card credit card and it recently announced Tap to Pay on the iPhone so that stores can charge their customers without the need for hire a POS with a bank.
To this must be added the rumored rental of the iPhone through a subscription, so that it would avoid operators and financiers for customers who wish to pay for the smartphone in installments.
The European Union has spent years limiting the power of technology multinationals in specific aspects, and Apple is usually one of its regular targets for its closed technologies.
Some issues that have already generated problems in the past are that it does not allow installing applications outside the App Store, the integration of the Lightning port on the iPhone instead of USB C or the advantages of services such as Apple TV or Music as they come pre-installed.
Of course, developers would love free access to the iPhone’s NFC , although the company maintains that thanks to Apple Pay, payments are more secure. It will be necessary to see what the European Commission rules, since in principle it does not agree with this limitation of NFC.
