Australia's antitrust regulator is considering requiring
Apple to support rivals to Apple Pay. Now Matt Comyn, CEO of the Commonwealth
Bank of Australia, has accused Apple of being anticompetitive.
According to Reuters, Comyn told a parliamentary committee
that he believes lawmakers should boost their scrutiny of Apple and other
technology giants.
"[The] claim that Apple is pro-competition, I think, is
a fair statement," Comyn said, "as long as one accepts that
competition is welcome as long as no one can compete with Apple."
"It is analogous to imagine a world today where, on
your Apple phone, the only person that could determine which carrier you used
is Apple," he continued.
Speaking to the same committee, Shayne Elliott of the
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, disagreed with Comyn.
"It's kind of ironic," Elliott said, "one of
Australia's biggest companies complaining about having to deal with other big
competitors."
The discussions with the parliamentary committee come as the
Australian government reportedly wants to reclassify technology firms as
payment systems. The intention is to then apply the latter classification's
more strict regulatory controls.
Unlike Apple, search giant Google allows banks and other
third parties to access its NFC chip.
The inquiry comes amid intensifying scrutiny from global
regulators over Apple and Google's dominance in the mobile market.
South Korea approved a bill last month that bans major app
store operators, including Apple, from forcing software developers to use their
payment systems.
In Germany, lawmakers in 2019 moved to force Apple to open
its mobile payments system to rivals for a reasonable fee.
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