The European Central Bank expresses dissatisfaction with Apple's launch of NFC payment solutions in Europe due to lingering fairness concerns

Gamingdeputy reported on April 23 that the European Commission approved Apple to open the Tap to Pay payment option “as soon as next month”, but the European Central Bank (ECB) recently sent a letter to the European Commission,It is believed that Apple's proposed modification plan has many shortcomings.

Apple launched the Tap to Pay feature in February 2022, available in iOS 15.4, making it available to U.S. merchants iPhone and iOS apps that support partner merchants to accept Apple Pay and other contactless payments.

The service allows users with supported iPhone devices to 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. Gamingdeputy briefly summarizes as follows:

unfair:

Apple does not allow third parties to fully access the Secure Element of its NFC technology, so on the iPhone, Apple Pay still has an unfair advantage over other third-party payment applications.

Cipollone believes that due to these restrictions imposed by Apple, iPhone users will experience differences in operating speed and experience when experiencing third-party contactless payments, resulting in users still preferring to use Apple Pay.

Many aspects have not been corrected

Cipollone believes that the modifications currently proposed by Apple do not allow offline transactions with digital euros through iPhones, and face-to-face payment solutions are not included in the modifications.

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 highlights the absence of 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.