NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As expected, Australian antitrust regulators shot down a request by four major banks for permission to bargain collectively with Apple to try to gain access to the tech giant’s NFC technology in its iPhones and to jointly boycott participation in Apple Pay during the negotiations.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in its final report released today concluded that, on balance, giving the banks the green light to bargain collectively could be detrimental to competition in the emerging digital payments market.
The commission had signaled in a draft decision last November that it would reject the request by the applicant banks, which include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp. and National Australia Bank–three of the country’s big four banks. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank also joined the action. ANZ is the only one of the big four now participating in Apple Pay.
