Apple Offers iPhone NFC Chip Access to Apple Pay Rivals in EU

[CarAnalogy]

This is bad: I can imaging banks removing support for Apple Pay and demand customers use their app to pay via NFC. So instead of a nice user journey (double click, swipe, pay) we may well be down the (double click), select bank app, wait ages for bank app to load, log in to bank app, dismiss useless message on bank app, pay. Much like the Tesco Pay+ I never use and I always have to login when trying to use it.

I don’t know why anyone would downvote this. All other payment methods are objectively harder to use, and almost always on purpose because just like everything else these days it’s an opportunity to put an ad in your face.

Home Depot loudly hounds me for my phone number every time for an “e-receipt” even though they blatantly refuse to allow any modern payment methods, because they still want that credit card tracking data, and preferably matching phone number.

These things are all run by the worst kind of marketing scum and this is one case where I’m happy with Apple retaining control. Same reason the iPhone remains the single phone on Earth that doesn’t come loaded with network cartel garbage.

 

[tmiw]

US banks I doubt it. Banks in the rest of the world, maybe. They are already offering their apps on Android anyway, so they’d likely just expand support of those to iOS.

Unlike in a lot of other places, Apple Pay is less accepted than physical cards in the US simply by virtue of customer handling of payment terminals being less common. While Apple Pay tends to be less used than tapping physical cards everywhere, I can see the difference in usage being especially stark in the US because of this. Thus, that would make it easier for some US banks to justify killing it, but I think they'll just point to the physical card and claim that as the alternative (rather than rolling their own apps).

Also, this story is about Europe, not the US. I can totally see Apple not rolling out third party NFC support in the US for as long as possible (then again, I thought they were going to still sell Lightning iPhones in the US despite the EU rule on USB-C and ended up being wrong about that).

 

[TheColtr]

This is something I DONT want to happen in the US. I like Apple Pay, all my cards support it, and the last thing I want is to open my bank's app for my debit card, credit card company for my credit card, etc. Apple Wallet is nice, and I don't want an alternative.

 

[lartola]

This is something I DONT want to happen in the US. I like Apple Pay, all my cards support it, and the last thing I want is to open my bank's app for my debit card, credit card company for my credit card, etc. Apple Wallet is nice, and I don't want an alternative.

But other people do, not everyone thinks like you. Besides, I don’t understand your reaction: that the nfc is opened up doesn’t mean you’re losing apple pay, and you will continue to use it the same as now if you want to.

 

[svish]

More and more features of iPhones are opening up due to EU regulations!!

 

[boak]

that the nfc is opened up doesn’t mean you’re losing apple pay, and you will continue to use it the same as now if you want to.

This assumption may not hold true. Banks may very well pull their cards from Apple Pay and you have to access them via the bank apps.

 

[Jay-Jacob]

This assumption may not hold true. Banks may very well pull their cards from Apple Pay and you have to access them via the bank apps.

Exactly! I am worried about that. I see some comments saying it is good thing and what is wrong with that and don't realised that banks can easily remove their cards from Apple Pay and force you use their payment system instead. Apple need be very careful with this.

 

[wanha]

That's why they want the customers to use their payment solution instead of Apple Pay.

Here in Norway the largest bank has never supported Apple Pay and when they buy other banks they revoke Apple Pay from the banks they buy.

The banks in Norway owns the most used payment solution between C2C and C2B. One update to this app (probably with a penetration of 95% of the population above 13 years) may use this solution just like Apple Pay.

That may be true in a market where Apple Pay has not achieved wide adoption, but where it has been adopted widely - like here in Finland - I find it very likely that users will bolt at that idea and will switch to a bank that allows them to keep using Apple Pay.

 

[I7guy]

More and more features of iPhones are opening up due to EU regulations!!

It’s great, right? The consumer wins big time! /s

 

[chewbaka]

Banks care about customer friction, so I think fears about this are overblown. Major card issuers aren’t going to give competitors an edge they could easily erase by being on Apple Pay themselves.

Also, maintaining your own payment software introduces additional liabilities I think they’re happy to leave to Apple.

 

[gregmancuso]

But other people do, not everyone thinks like you. Besides, I don’t understand your reaction: that the nfc is opened up doesn’t mean you’re losing apple pay, and you will continue to use it the same as now if you want to.

You assume that the banks will continue to support Apple Pay with their cards. The BANKS pay the 0.15% Apple Pay fee (or whatever it is) out of the 2-5% transaction fees they get from the merchants. You don't think most would stop supporting Apple Pay to save those fees payments? Or salivate over the extra user data they can get access to the Apple blocks from them when using Apple Pay?

This is not the same as an alternate App Store (as conventional wisdom here promotes). People will not have the option to stick with Apple Pay when their cards vanish.

 

[boak]

Major card issuers aren’t going to give competitors an edge they could easily erase by being on Apple Pay themselves.

Money is the ultimate edge. Banks could easily leave Apple Pay, sell the data they collect from their apps and retain customers by giving back a fraction of the money made from selling data as cashback.

 

[Stiksi]

Apple added support for Loyalty cards with nfc in wallet a long time ago, walgreens’ rewards card has been using it for years. Most merchants simply don’t care to use the feature, though.

No big chain supports the Wallet app here. It’s proprietary, so you need to support it and other services, so it’s just extra work and cost. We need cross-platform apps or services, not proprietary ones. We already have some apps like that, having NFC support in them is a game changer.

 

[1129846]

This is long over due and should of been added a long time ago.

People are hung up on the banking NFC but there are a lot of other uses for NFC outside of Apple Pay and Apple’s fairly limited use of it. Apple has been blocking access to doing that and this will really open things up.

 

[1129846]

Exactly! I am worried about that. I see some comments saying it is good thing and what is wrong with that and don't realised that banks can easily remove their cards from Apple Pay and force you use their payment system instead. Apple need be very careful with this.

I think it is over blown. Let’s look at some of the major players in credit cards.
Chase is not going to do it nor do I expect Amex to do it. Reason being is they know the same thing everyone else. Those are high value people and they will not want to go to the app. Many of the uses will be Apple Pay only.

Plus the banks still get all that sweet transactions data through Apple Pay.

 

[lartola]

You assume that the banks will continue to support Apple Pay with their cards. The BANKS pay the 0.15% Apple Pay fee (or whatever it is) out of the 2-5% transaction fees they get from the merchants. You don't think most would stop supporting Apple Pay to save those fees payments? Or salivate over the extra user data they can get access to the Apple blocks from them when using Apple Pay?

This is not the same as an alternate App Store (as conventional wisdom here promotes). People will not have the option to stick with Apple Pay when their cards vanish.

Maybe some banks will stop supporting apple pay, but I wouldn’t assume absolutely every single one will. That wouldn’t be a safe assumption either.

 

[lartola]

No big chain supports the Wallet app here. It’s proprietary, so you need to support it and other services, so it’s just extra work and cost. We need cross-platform apps or services, not proprietary ones. We already have some apps like that, having NFC support in them is a game changer.

They don’t support it because they don’t want to. Heck, most companies don’t even support adding their loyalty cards as a standard pass to wallet, let alone add them with NFC.

 

[lartola]

This is long over due and should of been added a long time ago.

People are hung up on the banking NFC but there are a lot of other uses for NFC outside of Apple Pay and Apple’s fairly limited use of it. Apple has been blocking access to doing that and this will really open things up.

Afaik Apple is only restricting the use of nfc for payment with 3rd party apps. Other uses such as reading/writing NFC tags are already allowed.

 

[BaldiMac]

Can anyone that has seen how this has been implemented on Android explain the consumer benefit of opening NFC access for card payments?

 

[gregmancuso]

Maybe some banks will stop supporting apple pay, but I wouldn’t assume absolutely every single one will. That wouldn’t be a safe assumption either.

I didn't mean to swing the pendulum all the way to the other end. It will not be all. But it will be a non-zero number. And probably quite a few of the larger banks. Remember, adoption of Apple Pay was more common by the smaller banks (regional and local CUs).

 

[gregmancuso]

No big chain supports the Wallet app here. It’s proprietary, so you need to support it and other services, so it’s just extra work and cost. We need cross-platform apps or services, not proprietary ones. We already have some apps like that, having NFC support in them is a game changer.

Access to NFC is not a game changer. It does not imply that all services will magically appear. You will still (in may cases I'd venture) need to use bank or store apps to access loyalty and credit cards.

All granting access to NFC for credit and loyalty cards outside of Apple Pay is let the store and banks use app-NFC-tap instead of app-QR code-scan.

 

[gregmancuso]

This is long over due and should of been added a long time ago.

People are hung up on the banking NFC but there are a lot of other uses for NFC outside of Apple Pay and Apple’s fairly limited use of it. Apple has been blocking access to doing that and this will really open things up.

NFC is accessible on iPhones today. For everything except credit cards which requires access to the T2 encryption. There are reader apps. There are hotels using it for room keys. Others.

 

[tmiw]

You assume that the banks will continue to support Apple Pay with their cards. The BANKS pay the 0.15% Apple Pay fee (or whatever it is) out of the 2-5% transaction fees they get from the merchants. You don't think most would stop supporting Apple Pay to save those fees payments? Or salivate over the extra user data they can get access to the Apple blocks from them when using Apple Pay?

This is not the same as an alternate App Store (as conventional wisdom here promotes). People will not have the option to stick with Apple Pay when their cards vanish.

The assumption is that European banks are paying 0.15%, which is likely not true considering that interchange is limited to 0.3% in the EU. Otherwise, there'd likely be no Apple Pay support from anyone in the first place.

 

[lartola]

NFC is accessible on iPhones today. For everything except credit cards which requires access to the T2 encryption. There are reader apps. There are hotels using it for room keys. Others.

And there are also office and apartment buildings using it for entry and elevator keys.

 

[lartola]

Can anyone that has seen how this has been implemented on Android explain the consumer benefit of opening NFC access for card payments?

People whose bank doesn’t support apple pay (which is still the case of many banks around the world) would still be able to pay with their iphone at stores using the bank’s app instead, something only possible on Android so far.