Australia: Apple’s fight with big banks gets nastier

Apple intensified an ongoing row with a number of large Australian banks over the use of iPhone NFC controllers for payments. On monday they made a fresh round of accusations, ahead of the regulators’ final judgement in March.

The US company on Monday filed a fresh sumbission with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission accusing the banks of trying to “delay or even block” its payment system in Australia, Bloomberg reported. Apple argued barring its service would hurt consumers and smaller card issuers.

Following the latest accusation, the banking consortium released its own statement reiterating its priority was to facilitate choice and competition for consumers, not to block Apple Pay.

The war of words comes a month before the ACCC is due to make its final decision on whether the group – made up of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, National Australia Bank, and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank – are allowed to jointly negotiate direct access to the NFC controllers in iPhones. This would enable them to provide their own alternative wallet services.

Full Content: Mashable

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