Although Apple Pay is officially earned in Australia back in November last year, some banks refuse to connect their cards to the payment system of Apple. According to Tuesday’s ABC News, the Australian Commission for competition and consumption (ACCC) has suspended financial institutions from conducting collective negotiations with Apple’s introduction of Apple Pay.
After reviewing the proposal to Apple, the Agency banned the creation of cartels of banks to negotiate with the company. The reason for refusal is called “support healthy competition among banks,” including, depending on the mobile payment services.
“Therefore, the ACCC recognises that collective bargaining is possible for banks and their boycott could put them in a more advantageous position before Apple, in fact, the benefits questionable and may be limited” — said the Chairman of the Department of Race Sims.
Banks will have to negotiate with Apple to card holders of these banks were able to use Apple Pay, the statement said. The American manufacturer does not intend to provide access to the standard near field communication nor banks, nor anyone else, to give the opportunity to offer its own version of integrated e-wallet for users of the iPhone.
However, Sims also said that banks have to offer their clients applications that do not require direct access to the standards of near field communication, but work on the basis of Apple Pay. In addition, as noted, banks can offer customers application based on Android. However, the agreement with Apple about the use of Apple Pay, could also negatively affect the competition between these two operating systems.
Recall that Apple Pay was criticised by the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac Banking Corporation, National Australia Bank and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. The main stumbling block is the fee, which the credit institution has to pay Apple for use of the service. The second point is that Australia’s mobile services are quite developed and many banks have their own payment apps. They don’t want customers to abandon them in favor of Apple Pay.
In the Apple called such behavior an attempt to “crush the competition and create unnecessary security risks”.
