Apple will make its tap-and-go mobile payments system available to competitors, as confirmed by the EU antitrust regulator. However, EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager noted that Apple has not yet adjusted its business practices to comply with new technology regulations.
Apple is currently under three investigations due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which mandates that major tech companies provide a fair playing field for competitors and give users more options. Last month, Vestager pointed out that Apple’s App Store policies violated the DMA and initiated an inquiry into the company’s new contractual terms for app developers and competing app stores. Since then, she has not observed any changes in Apple’s behavior to align with the DMA.
Vestager mentioned that so far, no behavioral changes have been noted from Apple following the preliminary findings. She expressed her expectation for such changes, emphasizing that it would benefit consumers and be respectful to legislative expectations for gatekeepers.
Separately, Vestager confirmed that she has accepted Apple’s proposal to open its tap-and-go mobile payments system to competitors, concluding a four-year investigation that could have led to a significant fine. The European Commission stated that Apple’s offer would be effective for ten years. Over 3000 banks and issuers in Europe currently support Apple Pay.
With this change, Apple will no longer be able to use its control over the iPhone ecosystem to exclude other mobile wallets from the market. The near-field communication (NFC) technology, which supports contactless payments with mobile wallets, will now be accessible to developers for creating payment apps for competing mobile wallet providers.
Apple stated that its proposal would allow European developers to enable tap-and-go payments for various applications, including car keys, transit passes, corporate badges, home keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty programs, and event tickets within their iOS apps.
The Norwegian mobile payment app Vipps MobilePay, which had previously complained about Apple Pay, welcomed Apple’s concessions, saying it allows them to compete on equal terms with Apple and other providers.
In March, Apple received its first EU antitrust penalty of 1.84 billion euros ($2.96 billion) for restricting competition from Spotify and other music streaming services through App Store policies.
Regarding Microsoft’s agreement with the cloud services organization CISPE to resolve an antitrust complaint and prevent an EU investigation, Vestager remarked that it seemed like a promising resolution.
