Apple proposed letting third-party mobile wallet and payment
service providers access the contactless payment function on its iOS operating
system, the EU said. The 27-nation bloc now is seeking feedback from “all
interested parties” on the changes before making a decision on the case.
The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm and top
antitrust enforcer, accused Apple in 2022 of abusing its dominant position by
limiting access to its mobile payment technology.
Brussels has been using antitrust cases and new digital laws
to rein in the power of Apple and other tech giants and protect consumers.
The commission alleged that Apple was restricting
competition by blocking developers of rival mobile wallet apps from accessing
the near-field communication, or NFC, technology used by its Apple Pay system.
That prevents those developers from offering competing services on Apple
devices, the EU said.
Breaches of EU competition law can draw fines worth up to
10% of a company’s annual global revenue, which in Apple’s case, could amount
to tens of billions of euros (dollars).
The changes Apple is proposing to ease EU antitrust concerns
would last for a decade and apply to rival mobile wallet makers as well as iOS
users in the bloc’s 27 countries, plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, the
commission said.
Apple said that through “ongoing discussions” with the
commission, it offered to provide developers of payment, banking and digital
wallet apps with an option for their users to “make NFC contactless payments
from within their iOS apps, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.”
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