Image credit – The Sydney Morning Herald
While Apple Pay has officially launched in Australia, not all of the country’s major banks have come on board. In fact just last month, the major Australian banks requested permission from the country’s competition regulator to join forces in an attempt to try and negotiate with Apple collectively, as opposed to individually.
Unsurprisingly Apple did not take too kindly to that, and has since fired back at the Australian banks. According to a report from the Financial Review (via MacRumors), Apple claimed that the behavior of the banks was that of a cartel. Apple says 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.”
Apple also claims that some of the alternatives provided by the banks would pose a serious security risk. “Apple upholds very high security standards for our customers when they use Apple devices to make payments. 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.”
The Cupertino company adds, “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.” Of course all this back and forth only means that customers in Australia will just have to wait a bit longer for Apple Pay to be fully realized in their country, so it will be interesting to see who will give in, or if a suitable compromise can be found.
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