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Unless you know what the banks specifically want changed in the deal, you can't substantiate that assertion. Apple has undoubtedly put a lot of time and money i

Unless you know what the banks specifically want changed in the deal, you can't substantiate that assertion. Apple has undoubtedly put a lot of time and money into validating and auditing the security around Apple Pay. It's a solution that doesn't need to be modified for the Australian market: one major Aussie bank has fully adopted Apple Pay already. There's no way Apple are going to allow that effort to be trashed by a few banks in a small overseas market. (It's also highly probable that the banks want to be able to implement processes that bypass the consumer friendly aspects of Apple Pay, like its strong privacy controls.)

viraptor 10y ago
> small overseas market That depends really. While Australia is a relatively small market, everyone here pays using paywave (contactless payments via credit/debit cards, 69% owned and 43% used in 2013!), and if a shop has a card terminal they support it. If it could be enabled on iPhones, they would get instant adoption by lots of people. I can't see any specific numbers to compare right now, but I'd be interested to see some contactless payment comparison between the US and Oz for 2015.
- eon1 10y ago
  Why do you think people would use their iPhones over the cards they already use, though? That's going backwards in terms of efficiency for the user, and it's not like the majority of people care about security.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    Fewer things to carry. It may not work for everyone, but it's one very practical reason.
  - manicdee 10y ago
    We already have our phone in our hands. The efficiency of Apple Pay with a phone already in your hand over cards in a wallet in your pocket is night and day.
    - eon1 10y ago
      > We already have our phones in our hands. Huh? Phone in hand while scanning stuff at the self-serve checkout? The only time I can think of myself using the phone while buying something is maybe at a convenience store while I'm on the phone, which is definitely not handy.. "Just hold on for a sec mate, I'm about to tap you.." > night and day Nah. NFC vs magnetic was night and day. One form of swipe over another, no way. Especially not if I need to fiddle with a fingerprint scan or a non-tactile interface.
- sjwright 10y ago
  Don't need to tell me, I'm an Aussie. :-) I posted a link with AUS vs US contactless payment statistics from 2015 elsewhere in this discussion.
- flukus 10y ago
  >everyone here pays using paywave No we don't, or at least I don't. I still use eftpos with a PIN because I don't trust wireless tech.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    "everyone". Of course nothing will be ever 100%. But it's close enough. It's universal and it's universally accepted.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    And I'm sure there's a few people who keep money in their mattress. Don't see how the paranoid delusions of less than 0.1% of the marketplace are relevant to this discussion.
    - flukus 10y ago
      You're greatly overestimating the amount of pay pass users.
      - Mayzie 10y ago
        I think you are underestimating the amount. I know of _nobody_ (parents, grandparents, friends, friends of friends, etc) that do _not_ use contactless payments when they can (anecdotal, I know). MasterCard, VISA, and the banks have spent many years marketing and educating the entire populace to just "tap and pay". Every payment terminal here, and by extension the merchants, has to support contactless payments. Every (debit and credit) card issued by a bank within the last few years have an NFC chip built-in. 99%^ of people with bank accounts have it, 99.9% of those use it when they can. ^there are some small banks / credit unions that still issue EFTPOS-only cards, but these are in the minority.
        flukus 10y ago
        Someone posted this else where in the thread: > A May 2015 survey by RF Intelligence Group, called ‘Global Payments Evaluation Study’, based on 32,000 respondents in 16 countries found that 66 per cent of Australians are aware that they own a contactless payment card and 53 per cent have made a contactless transaction. By contrast, just 14 per cent of Americans own a contactless card and only 9 per cent have used one for a payment. http://www.bpaybanter.com.au/news-views/why-do-australians-lead-the-way-in-contactless-pay http://www.bpaybanter.com.au/news-views/why-do-australians-l... So only just over 50% have made a single contact less payment (as of a year ago). It looks like you hang around an atypical group.
- manicdee 10y ago
  PYMNTS.com reckons about 3.5M people used Apple Pay at least once last year. http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/wanna-know-how-many-apple-pay-users-there-are/ http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/wanna-know-how-many-appl... Australia has a mature chip-and-pin and contactless payment model, to the point where we basically can't function when PayWave terminals go down ("you mean I need cash?" … out comes the phone to figure out where the nearest ATM is). Comparing the two markets is not informative, especially given the rollout problems the USA has with any new transaction processing system. In Australia almost half the population were using contactless payment in 2014. No better reference than News Corp. but that does put the number at least as high as 14M users. Note that the paymen handling market in the USA us three-tiered. My understanding is a little fuzzy but they have the card issuer, the payment processor who authorises payments, and the payment settler who handles the money. In Australia we only have issuers and banks, with banks filling the role of the bottom two tiers of the US model. As a result, the entry of Apple Pay into the Australian market involves taking half of the credit card payment settling cash flow away from the banks. So the banks are holding out and fighting Apple any way they can. None of the banks have the expertise to safely implement NFC on my phone. They deploy equipment built by others, using transaction models designed by others, and simply collect money for making sure the systems are functioning. Apple is entirely correct in not allowing third parties to access the NFC circuitry in order to protect the security of Apple Pay. The banks can prove their competence in Android first, but they recognise that the money they are hungry for mostly lives in Appke users' pockets.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    > None of the banks have the expertise to safely implement NFC on my phone. They deploy equipment built by others, using transaction models designed by others, and simply collect money for making sure the systems are functioning. This is an important point worth re-emphasizing. This isn't a case of Apple vs Banks, it's a case of Apple vs Various Technology Integrators With Multiple Layers Of Subcontractors.
jamez1 10y ago
The banks are the ones that wear any fraud, all they're asking is to use the NFC to communicate. It's the equivalent of apple charging you to browse the web, and forcing you to use their browser in the name of 'security'! This is rent-seeking at it's finest.
- sjwright 10y ago
  Apple have technology that reduces fraud rates and they ask for a very tiny cut of the merchant fees in return. Fraud is an expensive element of the cost of handling credit transactions. That is not rent-seeking, it's payment for services rendered.
  - darawk 10y ago
    It's rent-seeking because they are using their control of the phone to force out their competitors in an orthogonal market. They are providing a useful service, no question - but they should allow competition. If they are providing the best service, it won't matter anyway.
    - sjwright 10y ago
      You want rent-seeking? Look at the excessive merchant fees on credit transactions. It's nothing more than a shakedown on merchants so banks can bribe their customers with points and perks. Apple allow competition. It's called Android and it's available everywhere.
      - darawk 10y ago
        > You want rent-seeking? Look at the excessive merchant fees on credit transactions. It's nothing more than a shakedown on merchants so banks can bribe their customers with points and perks. I don't disagree, but what's your point? The fact that other, arguably worse rent-seeking exists does not change anything about the present circumstance. > Apple allow competition. It's called Android and it's available everywhere. Sure, that's true, and that's why anti-competitive laws have not been applied to behaviors like this on Apple's part. But you should recognize that if Android were to do something like this it would be illegal, because of their dominant position in the market place. This is exactly what Microsoft got stung on Antitrust for: Using dominance in one market to force out competitors in another. This behavior is objectively and unequivocally anti-competitive and, in general, bad for consumers. It circumscribes choice and it does so in a particularly pernicious way: by preventing the competitors from ever existing in the first place.
darawk 10y ago
According to the link, it seems the banks just want to be able to use the NFC chip in their own apps.
- sjwright 10y ago
  And that's not going to happen. Apple have tied their NFC chip closely to their secure enclave; there's no freaking way Apple are going to let a bunch of third rate subcontractors go anywhere near it.
  - darawk 10y ago
    It would be trivial to create an API for the secure enclave and the NFC chip that sandboxed apps to prevent them from manipulating each other's data. Apple is simply choosing not to do it.
    - pilif 10y ago
      It's definitely not trivial to do this in a secure way. Every bit of additional code is code that could contain security flaws. Also, looking at how the banks are doing over here ("your password can't be longer than 16 characters and can't contain the following symbols: " ' %"), I'm trusting apple more than the banks.
      - tmd83 10y ago
        It can very well be that Apple is or will design a more secure system than most back. They are after all good at security and one of the largest technology company. But the question here is that there are generic hardware in iPhone that can be used by anybody to make contactless payment good/bad. Apple is not giving them the access not just because of security but to reduce competition. If you don't trust your bank but apple the bank is not forcing you to use their app so that point doesn't really apply. What if Intel/AMD or any processor company was saying the the encoding hardware of their device was only accessible to their own app and not to other application in your device since others wouldn't know how to use it properly?
jpgvm 10y ago
The problem here is our banks are very good, they have always been very good. Fees are lower than almost any other developed country, tech is way ahead of most, apps are generally good if you like that sort of thing etc. Apple has basically said to the banks that though the iPhone includes hardware to do contactless payments -only- Apple can utilize that hardware. The banks are counter-offering that they will consider integrating with Apple Pay if that hardware is opened up to them, otherwise there is no benefit to Apple Pay for the banks at all. Consumers in Australia aren't going to force the banks to implement Apple Pay because the tech we have is already just as good, it just doesn't work with iPhone. Hell, we already have contactless payments on most Android phones with NFC. Apple needs to be realistic. If they want to enter into the Australian market they need to play fair and open up the hardware so that banks can offer a unified experience over both Android and iPhone without iPhone being a special little snowflake.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  Yup, as one of those Australian who solely uses an iPhone I don't give a crap about contactless payment via the iPhone. I use my card, which I keep in my wallet. If I break my iPhone I pay a fortune to replace it. I really do to want to lose the ability to pay for stuff at the same time.
  - zepto 10y ago
    Then why would you care if Apple gets their way?
    - chris_wot 10y ago
      Increased costs and a walled garden is fine for their App Store, but not for systems dealing with financial transactions. That's why.
      - zepto 10y ago
        You haven't actually explained anything - you've just made a statement. Why shouldn't Apple be able to ship whatever product they want? Why should banks be able to force an API on them?

viraptor 10y ago

> small overseas market That depends really. While Australia is a relatively small market, everyone here pays using paywave (contactless payments via credit/debit cards, 69% owned and 43% used in 2013!), and if a shop has a card terminal they support it. If it could be enabled on iPhones, they would get instant adoption by lots of people. I can't see any specific numbers to compare right now, but I'd be interested to see some contactless payment comparison between the US and Oz for 2015.

eon1 10y ago
Why do you think people would use their iPhones over the cards they already use, though? That's going backwards in terms of efficiency for the user, and it's not like the majority of people care about security.
- viraptor 10y ago
  Fewer things to carry. It may not work for everyone, but it's one very practical reason.
- manicdee 10y ago
  We already have our phone in our hands. The efficiency of Apple Pay with a phone already in your hand over cards in a wallet in your pocket is night and day.
  - eon1 10y ago
    > We already have our phones in our hands. Huh? Phone in hand while scanning stuff at the self-serve checkout? The only time I can think of myself using the phone while buying something is maybe at a convenience store while I'm on the phone, which is definitely not handy.. "Just hold on for a sec mate, I'm about to tap you.." > night and day Nah. NFC vs magnetic was night and day. One form of swipe over another, no way. Especially not if I need to fiddle with a fingerprint scan or a non-tactile interface.
sjwright 10y ago
Don't need to tell me, I'm an Aussie. :-) I posted a link with AUS vs US contactless payment statistics from 2015 elsewhere in this discussion.
flukus 10y ago
>everyone here pays using paywave No we don't, or at least I don't. I still use eftpos with a PIN because I don't trust wireless tech.
- viraptor 10y ago
  "everyone". Of course nothing will be ever 100%. But it's close enough. It's universal and it's universally accepted.
- sjwright 10y ago
  And I'm sure there's a few people who keep money in their mattress. Don't see how the paranoid delusions of less than 0.1% of the marketplace are relevant to this discussion.
  - flukus 10y ago
    You're greatly overestimating the amount of pay pass users.
    - Mayzie 10y ago
      I think you are underestimating the amount. I know of _nobody_ (parents, grandparents, friends, friends of friends, etc) that do _not_ use contactless payments when they can (anecdotal, I know). MasterCard, VISA, and the banks have spent many years marketing and educating the entire populace to just "tap and pay". Every payment terminal here, and by extension the merchants, has to support contactless payments. Every (debit and credit) card issued by a bank within the last few years have an NFC chip built-in. 99%^ of people with bank accounts have it, 99.9% of those use it when they can. ^there are some small banks / credit unions that still issue EFTPOS-only cards, but these are in the minority.
      - flukus 10y ago
        Someone posted this else where in the thread: > A May 2015 survey by RF Intelligence Group, called ‘Global Payments Evaluation Study’, based on 32,000 respondents in 16 countries found that 66 per cent of Australians are aware that they own a contactless payment card and 53 per cent have made a contactless transaction. By contrast, just 14 per cent of Americans own a contactless card and only 9 per cent have used one for a payment. http://www.bpaybanter.com.au/news-views/why-do-australians-lead-the-way-in-contactless-pay http://www.bpaybanter.com.au/news-views/why-do-australians-l... So only just over 50% have made a single contact less payment (as of a year ago). It looks like you hang around an atypical group.
manicdee 10y ago
PYMNTS.com reckons about 3.5M people used Apple Pay at least once last year. http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/wanna-know-how-many-apple-pay-users-there-are/ http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/wanna-know-how-many-appl... Australia has a mature chip-and-pin and contactless payment model, to the point where we basically can't function when PayWave terminals go down ("you mean I need cash?" … out comes the phone to figure out where the nearest ATM is). Comparing the two markets is not informative, especially given the rollout problems the USA has with any new transaction processing system. In Australia almost half the population were using contactless payment in 2014. No better reference than News Corp. but that does put the number at least as high as 14M users. Note that the paymen handling market in the USA us three-tiered. My understanding is a little fuzzy but they have the card issuer, the payment processor who authorises payments, and the payment settler who handles the money. In Australia we only have issuers and banks, with banks filling the role of the bottom two tiers of the US model. As a result, the entry of Apple Pay into the Australian market involves taking half of the credit card payment settling cash flow away from the banks. So the banks are holding out and fighting Apple any way they can. None of the banks have the expertise to safely implement NFC on my phone. They deploy equipment built by others, using transaction models designed by others, and simply collect money for making sure the systems are functioning. Apple is entirely correct in not allowing third parties to access the NFC circuitry in order to protect the security of Apple Pay. The banks can prove their competence in Android first, but they recognise that the money they are hungry for mostly lives in Appke users' pockets.
- sjwright 10y ago
  > None of the banks have the expertise to safely implement NFC on my phone. They deploy equipment built by others, using transaction models designed by others, and simply collect money for making sure the systems are functioning. This is an important point worth re-emphasizing. This isn't a case of Apple vs Banks, it's a case of Apple vs Various Technology Integrators With Multiple Layers Of Subcontractors.

jamez1 10y ago

The banks are the ones that wear any fraud, all they're asking is to use the NFC to communicate. It's the equivalent of apple charging you to browse the web, and forcing you to use their browser in the name of 'security'! This is rent-seeking at it's finest.

sjwright 10y ago
Apple have technology that reduces fraud rates and they ask for a very tiny cut of the merchant fees in return. Fraud is an expensive element of the cost of handling credit transactions. That is not rent-seeking, it's payment for services rendered.
- darawk 10y ago
  It's rent-seeking because they are using their control of the phone to force out their competitors in an orthogonal market. They are providing a useful service, no question - but they should allow competition. If they are providing the best service, it won't matter anyway.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    You want rent-seeking? Look at the excessive merchant fees on credit transactions. It's nothing more than a shakedown on merchants so banks can bribe their customers with points and perks. Apple allow competition. It's called Android and it's available everywhere.
    - darawk 10y ago
      > You want rent-seeking? Look at the excessive merchant fees on credit transactions. It's nothing more than a shakedown on merchants so banks can bribe their customers with points and perks. I don't disagree, but what's your point? The fact that other, arguably worse rent-seeking exists does not change anything about the present circumstance. > Apple allow competition. It's called Android and it's available everywhere. Sure, that's true, and that's why anti-competitive laws have not been applied to behaviors like this on Apple's part. But you should recognize that if Android were to do something like this it would be illegal, because of their dominant position in the market place. This is exactly what Microsoft got stung on Antitrust for: Using dominance in one market to force out competitors in another. This behavior is objectively and unequivocally anti-competitive and, in general, bad for consumers. It circumscribes choice and it does so in a particularly pernicious way: by preventing the competitors from ever existing in the first place.

darawk 10y ago

According to the link, it seems the banks just want to be able to use the NFC chip in their own apps.

sjwright 10y ago
And that's not going to happen. Apple have tied their NFC chip closely to their secure enclave; there's no freaking way Apple are going to let a bunch of third rate subcontractors go anywhere near it.
- darawk 10y ago
  It would be trivial to create an API for the secure enclave and the NFC chip that sandboxed apps to prevent them from manipulating each other's data. Apple is simply choosing not to do it.
  - pilif 10y ago
    It's definitely not trivial to do this in a secure way. Every bit of additional code is code that could contain security flaws. Also, looking at how the banks are doing over here ("your password can't be longer than 16 characters and can't contain the following symbols: " ' %"), I'm trusting apple more than the banks.
    - tmd83 10y ago
      It can very well be that Apple is or will design a more secure system than most back. They are after all good at security and one of the largest technology company. But the question here is that there are generic hardware in iPhone that can be used by anybody to make contactless payment good/bad. Apple is not giving them the access not just because of security but to reduce competition. If you don't trust your bank but apple the bank is not forcing you to use their app so that point doesn't really apply. What if Intel/AMD or any processor company was saying the the encoding hardware of their device was only accessible to their own app and not to other application in your device since others wouldn't know how to use it properly?

jpgvm 10y ago

The problem here is our banks are very good, they have always been very good. Fees are lower than almost any other developed country, tech is way ahead of most, apps are generally good if you like that sort of thing etc. Apple has basically said to the banks that though the iPhone includes hardware to do contactless payments -only- Apple can utilize that hardware. The banks are counter-offering that they will consider integrating with Apple Pay if that hardware is opened up to them, otherwise there is no benefit to Apple Pay for the banks at all. Consumers in Australia aren't going to force the banks to implement Apple Pay because the tech we have is already just as good, it just doesn't work with iPhone. Hell, we already have contactless payments on most Android phones with NFC. Apple needs to be realistic. If they want to enter into the Australian market they need to play fair and open up the hardware so that banks can offer a unified experience over both Android and iPhone without iPhone being a special little snowflake.

chris_wot 10y ago
Yup, as one of those Australian who solely uses an iPhone I don't give a crap about contactless payment via the iPhone. I use my card, which I keep in my wallet. If I break my iPhone I pay a fortune to replace it. I really do to want to lose the ability to pay for stuff at the same time.
- zepto 10y ago
  Then why would you care if Apple gets their way?
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    Increased costs and a walled garden is fine for their App Store, but not for systems dealing with financial transactions. That's why.
    - zepto 10y ago
      You haven't actually explained anything - you've just made a statement. Why shouldn't Apple be able to ship whatever product they want? Why should banks be able to force an API on them?