Since the arrival of Apple Pay in Australia, Apple has always had problems with the country's banks, since the commission that the Cupertino-based company wants to keep for each transaction is higher than the one that the card issuing banks obtain for each one of them. In fact, a few months ago, a member of the government party put the cry to the sky stating that either it changed or they would be forced to take this issue to the competition court since the use of Apple Pay was being limited exclusively to American Express without offering service to the main banks.
But it is not Apple's only problem with banks in this country. The spokesperson for the three largest banks in the country, National Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corp affirms that Apple's restrictions on Wallet to third parties supposes a behavior contrary to free competition. These three banks are looking to collectively negotiate the installation of third-party payment software on the iPhone that can make use of the NFC chip.
Currently the only way to make use of the iPhone's NFC chip through the Wallet application and if Wallet is not compatible with the banks in question, users cannot enter their cards in this application to later make payments with the device. The big banks want to end this limitation and they have brought this issue to the court of the country's competition. As we can read in the Sydney Morning Herald:
It's about providing Australians with a real option that delivers better results. If successful, the application would have enormous benefits for all citizens, not only for banks, since it could be used to make payments on public transport, on airlines, in ticket sales, loyalty cards, reward programs and many more applications that could be developed in the future to take advantage of the iPhone's NFC chip.
