The Apple company is fighting a deaf battle with the banks in Australia to launch Apple Pay, they have been opposing this service for months. The banks claim that Apple is trying to impose non-competitive measures by launching Apple Pay, the banks asking for access to the NFC in iPhone terminals in order to allow their own applications to offer mobile payments in the same way.
A lawsuit was initiated in this dispute, and the Apple company seems to be very close to winning it and forcing the banks to accept Apple Pay, without having access to the NFC in the iPhone. Apple claims that the opposition of the banks affects the traders and sellers who want to use the technology, and this seems to have convinced the court judging this case.
Apple also claims that it cannot provide access to the NFC in the iPhone for third-party applications because it would endanger the security of transactions made through it. Banks say that all consumers must have multiple options in terms of mobile payments, they cannot offer the same payment methods through NFC, but only through the Internet.
Apple has so far managed to convince American Express and other financial institutions to support Apple Pay in Australia, but the rest of the big banks are strongly opposed. In spite of the fact that Apple Pay will increase their transactions and implicitly the receipts from their base, the banks do not want to give Apple the power that the launch of this system will give it.
If the court still decides that Apple must be able to launch Apple Pay, then the banks will have no choice but to collaborate with the Apple company.
"In its latest submission to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, published Monday, Apple said it was concerned banks are seeking to "delay the expansion of Apple Pay," hurting both consumers and smaller card issuers who could use the technology "as a means of securing a digital presence in competition with the big banks.""
