Surely not? EU thinks Apple may be acting anti-competitively again

Apple is not best known for letting competitors into their walled garden or for letting an opportunity to skim profits from any transactions which takes place there.

It is, therefore, no surprise that Apple is once in the crosshairs of the European Competition Commission.

The Inquirer reports that the Commission is currently looking into reports that payment providers were not able to access the NFC chip on iPhones without going through Apple Wallet and Apple Pay, while on Android they were able to access the NFC chip directly.

In the UK, for example, the Barclays app on Android is able to become the default payment provider for tap to pay, while on the iPhone it has to go through Apple Pay.

Note for example that on Android above the Barclays app is able to show their own UI, while on iOS they show the Apple Wallet.

Apple, of course, used the usual security reason as their excuse and said if apps wanted to process payments directly they could always use QR codes.

The Commission has not started a formal investigation yet, but has started speaking to “operators in the sector” looking for possible “anti-competitive market practices and abusive conduct.”

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