EU set to announce new anticompetitive charges against Apple, targeting dominance of Apple Pay in iPhone

The Financial Times is reporting that Apple is set to come under fire on fresh anticompetitive charges from the European Union, which will likely be formally announced next week.

Apple will face the complaint that it unfairly monopolises the mobile payments system on the iPhone, by promoting Apple Pay and restricting other services from having the same access to the iPhone’s NFC hardware.

News of a forthcoming complaint surrounding access to NFC hardware in the iPhone, as it pertains to mobile payments systems, surfaced back in October.

As it stands today, only Apple Pay is able to utilise the NFC chip for seamless contactless payments at retail stores, where users are able to simply hold their iPhone close to a payment terminal to begin a contactless transaction.

NFC access to third-party apps is heavily restricted, with essential NFC modes for mobile payments off-limits to app developers and other NFC operations often requiring the app to be foregrounded in order to work at all. (Some background NFC features are available to third-party apps since iOS 12, but the capabilities are not sufficient to support an Apple Pay like experience.

Apple has previously said that full access to the NFC chip is limited to protect customers from abuse, or invasions of privacy.

The EU commission previously opened formal charges against the App Store as it pertains to streaming music services, indicating Apple unfairly favored Apple Music over Spotify and other rivals. In addition to the NFC investigation, a similar exploration of Apple’s behavior in the mobile games is also underway.

The EU crackdown comes as Apple faces increasing pressure from legislation like the Digital Markets Act, which may force Apple to open up its platforms more than ever before, including allowing app sideloading.