The European Central Bank is dissatisfied with Apple's opening of NFC payment solutions in Europe: there are still many unfairnesses

According to news on April 23, the European Commission approved Apple to open the Tap to Pay payment option “as soon as next month”. However, the European Central Bank (ECB) recently sent a letter to the European Commission, believing that Apple’s proposed modification plan has many problems. insufficient.

Apple launched the Tap to Pay feature in February 2022, available in iOS 15.4, allowing U.S. merchants to accept Apple Pay and other contact-free payments using iPhones and iOS apps that support partner merchants Pay. With this service, users with supported iPhone devices can securely accept contactless payments and NFC-enabled Apple Pay credentials. With Tap to Pay on iPhone, merchants can accept contactless payments without using additional hardware. According to Apple’s new European regulations, banks and third-party payment applications do not need to use the Wallet application or Apple Pay, and can directly implement contactless payments on the iPhone through NFC. However, Pietro Cipollone, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, believes that the open NFC payment rules announced by Apple are insufficient in many aspects. A brief summary is as follows:

Unfair:

Apple does not allow third parties to fully access the Secure Element of its NFC technology. Therefore, on the iPhone, Apple Pay is still unfair to other third-party payment applications. The advantages. Cipollone believes that due to these restrictions imposed by Apple, iPhone users will experience differences in operating speed and usage experience when experiencing third-party contactless payments, resulting in users still preferring to use Apple Pay.

Many aspects have not been rectified

Cipollone believes that the current modification plan proposed by Apple does not allow offline transactions with digital euros through iPhone, and in addition, face-to-face payment solutions are not included in the rectification plan. The European Central Bank believes that the above two key factors will hinder the establishment of a digital euro. Although Apple has agreed to provide NFC technology to third parties on iPhones, the adjustment does not include Apple Watch. This means that third-party access to NFC technology on Apple platforms will still be restricted, and all payments made through Apple Watch must be made through Apple Pay. The letter also emphasized that there are no e-commerce and m-commerce changes in Apple's proposal. Apple believes that Apple Pay would have an unfair advantage over third-party apps that do not have access to secure elements, particularly where access to secure elements is necessary to avoid redirection to a separate app for payment processing. Related reading: "It is reported that the European Union will approve Apple to open NFC payment options to third parties as soon as next month"

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