In the EU, Apple no longer has the right to reserve the iPhone’s NFC payment features for its own Apple Pay service. And this week, an application has officially put an end to this monopoly. In Norway, mobile payment company Vipps has just launched the world’s first application to compete with Apple Pay on the iPhone.
Like the Cupertino company’s payment app, it will first allow NFC payments to be made in stores accepting BankAxept cards, a national payment system which covers 90% of payment terminals in the country. country. But Vipps is already planning to support Visa and Mastercard terminals, which will allow its users to make payments in other countries.
“We fought for a long time to compete on equal terms with Apple. That’s why it’s almost surreal to finally launch our own solution. It will now be a rare and exciting battle between the strongest brand in the world and Vipps”said Rune Garborg, head of Vipps MobilePay.
The result of an agreement between Apple and the European Commission
If payment applications like Vipps can today compete directly with Apple Pay on the iPhone, it is thanks to a series of commitments that the Cupertino company proposed to the European Commission and which the latter acceptedin July. As a reminder, Brussels had investigated the situation of NFC payments on iPhone and had concluded, on a preliminary basis, “that Apple had abused its dominant position by refusing to provide NFC entry on iOS to competing mobile wallet developers while reserving such access exclusively for Apple Pay.”
To put an end to this procedure, Apple has notably committed to allowing wallet providers to use NFC technology on the iPhone, free of charge, and without going through its Apple Pay or Apple Wallet services. The firm is also committed to applying eligibility criteria “fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory” to payment application developers. These commitments apply for a period of 10 years, and in all countries of the European Economic Area. And if Apple does not respect its commitments, the European Commission can impose a fine of up to 10% of its total annual turnover.
- Norwegian app Vipps is the very first iOS app to compete with Apple Pay on the iPhone
- This became possible thanks to commitments made by Apple to the European Commission
- The firm is committed to allowing developers to compete with Apple Pay through free access to the iPhone’s NFC module for mobile payments.
- Apple risks a heavy fine if it does not respect these commitments
