EU Invites Comments on Solutions to Apple Pay Competition Issues

European Commission

The European Commission (EC) has invited comments on the commitments offered by Apple to address competition concerns related to access restrictions for contactless payments on mobile devices.

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    The EC’s investigation focuses on Apple Pay, the mobile wallet solution exclusively available on iPhones running Apple’s operating system (iOS), the regulator said in a Friday (Jan. 19) press release.

    The EC has preliminarily found that Apple enjoys significant market power in the smart mobile device market and holds a dominant position in the mobile wallet market on iOS, according to the release.

    The investigation centers on Apple’s control over its closed ecosystem, which includes mobile wallet developers’ access to the necessary hardware and software for contactless payments, the release said.

    Apple Pay is currently the sole mobile wallet solution that can access the Near-Field Communication (NFC) components required for mobile payments in physical stores on iOS devices, per the release. This exclusivity raises concerns about potential anti-competitive behavior, as it limits the entry of third-party mobile wallet and payment service providers.

    In response to the Commission’s concerns, Apple has offered several commitments to address the competition issues, according to the release.

    These commitments include allowing third-party mobile wallet and payment service providers to access and interoperate with the NFC functionality on iOS devices through application programming interfaces (APIs) free of charge, without relying on Apple Pay or Apple Wallet, the release said.

    These commitments would be applied to all third-party mobile wallet app developers established in the European Economic Area (EEA) and all iOS users with an Apple ID registered in the EEA, per the release.

    Apple would also commit to providing features and functionalities like defaulting preferred payment apps, access to authentication features like FaceID, and a suppression mechanism, according to the release.

    The company would also apply fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory eligibility criteria for granting NFC access to third-party mobile wallet app developers, the release said. A dispute settlement mechanism would allow independent experts to review Apple’s decisions regarding NFC access denial.

    The proposed commitments would remain in force for 10 years and be monitored by a designated trustee reporting to the EC, according to the release.

    The EC’s investigation into Apple’s potential violations of European Union (EU) competition rules was launched on June 16, 2020.

    The Commission sent a statement of objections to Apple on May 2, 2022, expressing its preliminary view that Apple abused its dominant position in the mobile wallet market on iOS devices.


    ACH Same-Day Q2 Volume Increases 15% to Nearly $1T

    The ACH Network says it has seen “significant” gains in same-day payments since last year.

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      Those transactions were up 15% during the second quarter compared to last year, helping drive overall growth of 5%, the payments network that underpins most U.S. payroll, bill pay and B2B invoices said Monday (July 21).

      “The continued robust growth of Same Day ACH shows how it is serving payments use cases for consumers, businesses, government agencies and other organizations,” Jane Larimer, president and CEO of Nacha, which operates the ACH network, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS. “As we enter the second half of the year, we expect to see this trend continue.”

      In all, ACH Network growth continued during the quarter, with 8.7 billion payments valued at $23.3 trillion, respective increases of 5% and 7.9% year over year. The network saw 336.4 million same-day payments, moving $980.3 billion in value, up 15% and 22% respectively. During the first half of this year, Same Day ACH handled 662.4 million payments valued at almost $1.9 trillion.

      “Business-to-business ACH volume grew apace, with more than 2 billion payments, up 10.6% from the same period in 2024,” the release added. “Claim payments to healthcare providers grew by 9.9% to 138.2 million payments.”

      The report follows a quarter in which the volume of Same Day ACH payments climbed 19.1% year over year to reach 326 million, with the value of those payments increasing 24.8%.

      In related news, PYMNTS explored the “speed-and-security paradox” surrounding faster payments in a recent conversation with Bill Wardwell, senior vice president of payments, treasury and supplier services at spend management platform Coupa, and Katie Elliott, senior risk and fraud officer at B2B payments network Bottomline.

      “I know it seems counterintuitive, but I’m going to say it: Slowing down is the best practice for faster payments,” Elliott said.

      She said her remedy is to introduce friction into high-risk moments like vendor onboarding or a change to routing instructions, while allowing an already vetted payment to proceed across real-time payment or same-day ACH rails. When urgency is not part of the equation, business email compromise schemes that rely on fear and deadlines lose their potency.

      The hidden enemy is fragmentation, Wardwell added. Pointing to a soon-to-be-published Coupa survey, he said that nearly 80% of the companies that suffered payment fraud were using multiple payment workflow systems.