Apple says Australian banks’ plans would “diminish” security

Apple is urging the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to reject a request from a group of the country’s banks to “collectively negotiate” with third party mobile wallet providers over the introduction of mobile payment services.

Apple PayIn a three-page letter to the ACCC, Apple states that the banks’ application was made up of “factual and legal misstatements” and would “harm consumers, lead to less competition and less innovation, and create a troubling precedent” if granted.

“Unfortunately, and based on their limited understanding of the offering, the applicants perceive Apple Pay as a competitive threat,” the company says. “These banks want to maintain complete control over their customers. The present application is only the latest tactic employed by these competing banks to blunt Apple’s entry into the Australian market.

“Now they ask the ACCC for explicit permission to negotiate with Apple as a collective group, the goal of which is to: force Apple and other third party providers to accept their terms; allow them to charge consumers that choose to use Apple Pay; and force Apple to undermine the security of its mobile payment service by opening access to the NFC antenna, placing at risk the consumer experience of a simple, secure and private way to make payments in-store, within applications or on the web.

“Providing simple access to the NFC antenna by banking applications would fundamentally diminish the high level of security Apple aims to have on our devices.”

Westpac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB) and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank submitted their request to the ACCC in July 2016.

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2 comments on this article

  1. Would anyone like to explain how “providing simple access to the NFC antenna” could/would in any way diminish Apple device security?

  2. yeah it is simply a line of Whooy by Apple unfortunately. I would like to see the security paper explaining that. I am astonished frankly to see that they lack the capacity to understand this simply magnetic frequency technology.

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