The end of iPhones limited to Apple Pay is near: Europe intends to accept other forms of payment, according to the Financial Times

The NFC chip of the iPhone is limited in terms of payments from the first moment that Apple decided to incorporate it into its mobile phones. The uses of this NFC chip are very brief and when we talk about being able to pay with the phone, or with the Apple Watch, We only have one solution left: go through Apple Pay. The North American firm has been very jealous of this claiming that it was a security issue, but perhaps this will change in the near future.

The reason is that in Europe they would have become serious, according to the Financial Times. The European Commission has been putting its focus and not a few efforts on short-tying the North American giants of the technological world for some time. And if you have already imposed multi-million dollar fines on beasts of the caliber of Google or Microsoft, now they have Apple, Apple Pay and their NFC chips in their sights.

The NFC of the iPhone has to be for everyone and not just for Apple Pay

Europe considers that Apple acts with respect to its NFC chip in a way that violates the rights of its competition. We can pay with iPhone or Apple Watch anywhere that allows contactless payments, yes, but only if the payment is processed through Apple Pay. We are no longer even talking about giving access to Google Pay, its direct competition, is that payments cannot be made with PayPal, for example, or with any other competing alternative.

The Financial Times reports that, in the opinion of the European Commission, Apple is “unfairly blocking groups like PayPal and major banks from accessing their mobile payment system“, citing a report prepared by the commission itself to which they have had access. From Europe they try to get Apple to open the range of options with its NFCand it seems that the matter will go seriously.

For its part, Apple has said on a few occasions in the past that opening its payment system, the one closely related to Apple Pay and its NFC chip, “could be detrimental to the ease of use, data protection and security of the financial information”. Although the system designed by Apple prevents the leakage of private data from the phonebecause paying with Apple Pay we only let out an encrypted token.

It is not the only open conflict that Apple maintains with the governance of the old continent at the moment. Let’s not forget that Apple may soon have to install USB Type-C ports on its mobile phones in order to comply with regulations and environmental policies. And not only launch a charger with a USB type C port, but also bring the USB connector to the cable. We’ll see how this thing ends.

Via | Financial Times

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