[jonhuber]

As an American living in Australia, you quickly see the lack of innovation on payments in the US. Contact-less payments have been prevalent since moving here in 2012. The ability to pay bills via a common protocol is so nice, BPAY. The ability to move money between people electronically without third parties is also refreshing, direct bank transfers.

I have a Nexus 5 and use NFC payments via Google Pay and Bank Apps. In my opinion, they both are terrible from ease of use standpoint. Tapping my card on the terminal is far superior to opening an app and fumbling with it. As far as Apple is concerned, I think they are completely in the wrong in not letting other apps use NFC. Ideally, they win market share by creating the better experience. The banks getting together to negotiate terms is ridiculous too. In my opinion, an ideal outcome would be open NFC use on Apple devices. The better experience wins. I do not think collectively negotiating terms does anything for the consumer.

[mcv]

And Apple is trying to simultaneously compete with the banks and with Android. If the banks get a superior experience on Android, Apple has a problem.

[dpark]

> Ideally, they win market share by creating the better experience.

Right now Apple can't provide the better experience, because the banks in question will not support their system. The banks don't want to support Apple Pay, so Apple opening up NFC would just shift the balance of power entirely in favor of the banks.

[Veratyr]

My impression is that the banks want the access to be bidirectional. If they give access to Apple Pay, Apple should give them access to the NFC module.

That seems fair to me. Apple should have to compete instead of monopolising its platform.

[dpark]

If that's what the banks want, it's not unreasonable.

I'm not sure I agree that Apple shouldn't be able to monopolize its platform, though. If Apple had a true monopoly, sure, but they don't. They have at this point the minority of smartphones. I similarly don't think Ford is obligated to support Android Auto or Apple Play.

[iamshs]

No. That's not what the banks want. The banks want to form a cartel to collectively negotiate with Apple, which effectively means no negotiation at all. They want to strongarm Apple to open up its NFC module to individual banking apps; they won't roll up Apple Pay.

[Veratyr]

I don't buy it. Apple is just painful to negotiate with and the banks want an at least semi-even table to play at.

This conflict isn't unbalanced. The same access is being sought on both sides. The banks want their ~10M ish iPhone users to have access to payments on their phones. Apple wants the same ~10M ish users to have access to payments on their phones. Both sides want something of equal value, it simply seems like Apple wants it all and isn't willing to give anything up.

[iamshs]

The big 4 want to boycott Apple Pay, and want to strong arm others into boycotting Apple Pay too. They want a mafia ruling, not amicable solution.

This is the submission:- http://registers.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1197...

[Veratyr]

Thank you, that actually backs up what I've been saying:

> competition: the applicants wish to ensure that the potential for competition and innovation in the emerging market for mobile payments is maintained. Therefore, they wish to collectively negotiate in response to any technological or other exclusivity that a Third Party Wallet Provider may seek to impose by:

> - refusing, restricting or failing to provide software access to any payment functionality built into devices manufactured by or for, or operating systems developed or distributed by, the Third Party Wallet Provider, for example NFC functionality; and/or

> - otherwise preventing or impeding card issuers from developing, deploying or participating in any other mobile payment or mobile wallet services or Third Party Wallets on any mobile devices or platforms;

They're mainly concerned with fraud standards and making sure nobody (Apple) tries to limit access to their platform.

As for your boycotting and "strong arm" claims, this document shows that scope is significantly narrower than you're implying:

> Accordingly, the applicants seek authorisation to: [...]

> enter into a limited form of collective boycott where the applicants will agree not to negotiate with the relevant Third Party Wallet Provider on an individual basis while collective negotiations with that Third Party Wallet Provider are ongoing.

The "boycott" in this document is referring solely to individual negotiation. i.e. Bank1 can't go behind the other banks' back and sweeten the deal while they're negotiating as a group.