William Gallagher
An Australian committee has heard arguments from Apple, Google, and others regarding the opening up of iPhone NFC payment systems to more than just Apple Pay.
As the European Union has considered forcing Apple to open up its contactless payment technology, so Australia is hearing arguments for and against the same issue. On Monday, an Australian Parliamentary committee heard from Apple, Google, and more.
According to ZDNet, Apple argued that security is the reason iPhone does not support alternatives while Android does. It also said in a written response to the Parliamentary Joint committee on Corporations and Financial Services, that Apple Pay "is available to all banks in Australia on fair and non-discriminatory terms."
"Contrary to some claims in some of the submissions [by rivals], Apple provides banks with access to NFC functionality on Apple devices," it continued. "Apple has developed a technical architecture that comprises hardware and software components and application programming interfaces (APIs) that banks can use to facilitate contactless payments with their cards and mobile banking applications."
"Apple chose to call this architecture Apple Pay... because it allowed Apple to market the service to consumers without having to preference one bank over another," said Apple's response.
"Apple chose a unique architecture to differentiate itself from Android by enabling consumers to easily switch between cards issued by different banks whilst still supporting contactless payments from third party apps and enabling non-payment uses of NFC technology (such as car keys and transit cards)," said the company. "Apple's pro-competitive technical architecture provides consumers and merchants with greater choice, supporting cards and use cases from thousands of providers."
The written response points out that Apple's system is hardware based, using the Secure Element on the iPhone. By contrast, Apple says that the software-based Host Card Emulation (HCE) is less secure.
Google reportedly denies this, and it also refutes Apple's claim that Apple Pay presents a simpler, clearer experience for users.
"Our payments apps are immensely secure," Diana Layfield, Google president of partnerships in the EMEA region, said in a presentation to the committee. "[Our] HCE system, which is used by a very large number of banks all around the world, is audited directly by the banks... [We] would refute the suggestion our HCE environment is in any way insecure."
"I would argue the user experience on Google Pay is equal to that of Apple Pay," she continued.
The committee is continuing to consider the arguments.
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21 Comments
Oh boy. Not sure this is a good idea. Competition doesn’t like it so they object and demand access to the technology. Something not right about that,
The issue Australia has isn't with the iPhone per se... it's with iOS. If Apple allowed opening up its contact payment technology by allowing users to install Android, that still wouldn't be good enough for Australia. Even though that would give consumers the choice of an open (via Android) or closed (via iOS) contact payment technology, Australia would still be upset because to them it's not about whether the technology is opened or closed, it's about removing the choice for consumers to even have access to a closed technology.
OMG just buy an Android!
As an Apple product user since 1989 I object to any government forcing Apple to do something with its product that it doesn't want to do. It's Apple's product, not the Australian government's or any other government's product. Australia isn't paying Apple anything and they don't have any legal or ethical right to tell them they have to allow other products access to its specialized hardware and software. As for Apple Pay being discriminatory, that's BS. I can pay for things on-line by inputting typical credit card information. I can use PayPal, which doesn't require NFC. An Apple device can use other payment methods using a company's or bank's app. As far as people complaining about Apple getting a cut, that's another bunch of BS. Everyone gets a cut during every transaction. The merchant gets a cut, the bank get a far larger cut. People need to stop complaining and realized that governments want Apple to open their security framework so they can write apps to steal people's private information. It has nothing to do with banking and everything to do with gaining unfettered access to the phone. Anyone who doesn't understand this is naive and/or utterly underinformed. This is a power grab by governments and Apple better not bend over to these self-serving government officials because it puts my personal information at risk.