European Union: Closed European Commission investigation into Apple’s practices related to Apple Pay/NFC payments ("tap and go" technology on iPhones)

Description

Closed European Commission investigation into Apple’s practices related to Apple Pay/NFC payments ("tap and go" technology on iPhones)

On 11 July 2024, the European Commission closed its investigation into Apple’s practices related to access restrictions to the Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology used for contactless payments with mobile devices after accepting Apples’ final commitments. The Commission had preliminarily found that Apple had breached competition laws by restricting access to mobile NFC technology on its devices to its own payment solution, Apple Pay. This prevented other mobile wallet app developers from offering NFC payments. Apple’s final commitments includes extending the possibility to initiate payments with HCE payment apps at other industry-certified terminals, explicitly acknowledging that HCE developers are not prevented from combining the HCE payment function with other NFC functionalities, removing the requirement for developers to have a licence as a Payment Service Provider or a binding agreement to access the NFC input, allowing NFC access for developers to pre-build payment apps for third party mobile wallet providers, updating the HCE architecture to comply with evolving industry standards used by Apple Pay, allowing developers to prompt users to set up their default payment app and redirect users to the default NFC settings page, complying with the same industry standard-specifications as developers of HCE payment apps, shortening deadlines for resolving disputes, and offering additional independence and procedural guarantees for the monitoring trustee.

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Scope

Policy Area
Competition
Policy Instrument
Unilateral conduct regulation
Regulated Economic Activity
digital payment provider (incl. cryptocurrencies)
Implementation Level
supranational
Government Branch
executive
Government Body
competition authority

Complete timeline of this policy change

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2020-06-16
under deliberation

On 16 June 2020, the European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation assessing whether Ap…

2022-05-02
under deliberation

On 2 May 2022, the European Commission has issued a Statement of Objections informing Apple of its …

2024-01-19
in consultation

On 19 January 2024, the European Commission opened a consultation until 17 February 2024 on the pro…

2024-02-17
processing consultation

On 17 February 2024, the European Commission closed its consultation on the proposed commitments fr…

2024-07-11
concluded

On 11 July 2024, the European Commission closed its investigation into Apple’s practices related to…