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Apple has launched a blistering attack on three of Australia's big banks, saying their request to collectively negotiate over digital wallet access to the iPhone will compromise the handset's security, reduce innovation and blunt Apple's entry into the payments market in Australia.
In a sign of growing acrimony between the world's largest company and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac Banking Corp, Apple told the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that "allowing the banks to form a cartel to collectively dictate terms to new business models and services would set a troubling precedent and delay the introduction of new, potentially disruptive technologies".
The three large banks made an application in late July with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank seeking authorisation to collectively negotiate with the technology giant, which has locked the banks and other third-party providers of digital wallets off the iPhone platform in favour of its own Apple Pay.
In a pithy, three-page submission to the ACCC, Apple says providing access to the phone's transmitter to allow bank applications to facilitate contactless payments would compromise the security of Apple's hardware.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Appalbarry on Wednesday August 10 2016, @08:55PM
So, in a nutshell, Apple is insisting that it needs a monopoly on iPhone NFC payments in order to defeat a banking cartel.
Must be part of that whole "disruptive" thing.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 10 2016, @09:48PM
Apple don't have a smart phone monopoly.
The Australian banks really are a cartel, so much so that when taxpayers all over the world were propping up their banks, the Australian ones were too embarrassed to hold their hands out. (I know all this because I live in New Zealand, which is owned by the Aussie banks).
(Score: 5, Informative) by Bogsnoticus on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:43PM
They didn't hold their hands out because our laws dictate that they must carry enough cash assets to be able to pay up the majority should every one of their customers decide to close their accounts.
And for some reason, the free market wonks consider this to be a bad thing.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:54PM
Debt and the threat of insolvency are The Way To Prosperity.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:32PM
I'm sure you're right about the cash holdings, I just always assumed it was the $1 billion or so annual profits they ship overseas that stopped them asking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @06:00AM
They didn't hold their hands out because Australia has actual banking regulations that stopped the banks from be as reckless as most other countries banks.
Not for the lack of banks whining and complaining that they were't as competitive as the reckless banks, and even giving lots of money to the politicians, and jobs to them and their families and friends.
Still wasn't enough to have the regulations removed.
Perhaps this is the lesson you should be learning. Taking the dollars out of politics and regulate for the good of the people, not the good of the rich, and you still just may end up with embarrassingly profitable banks anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:12PM
An iPhone NFC monopoly is fair enough, it's Apple's phone.
There's no general NFC monopoly either - the iPhone will be competing with all the other extant contactless payment systems in Australia. For example, the 5+ years of contactless Visa and Mastercards issued by banks.
That being said, our Aussie banks are a cartel (the "Four Pillars [wikipedia.org]").
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @04:11AM
Indeed. How do you like crapple when the shoe is in the other foot?
Nice little banksies are just having a walled garden over there...