Apple condemns Australian banks' request to collectively bargain over Apple Pay in filing to antitrust watchdog the ACCC earlier this month
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider :
Context & Ripple Effects
In its filing to the ACCC, Apple is fighting a coordinated front: four Australian banks seeking permission to negotiate jointly over Apple Pay and NFC access rather than deal with Apple one issuer at a time. The stakes are control of the tap-to-pay rails — Apple's position is that no bank should get terms it doesn't grant bilaterally.
The arc runs long. Months after this filing, the ACCC sided with Apple and rejected the banks' collective-bargaining application outright. But the underlying grievance — issuers locked out of NFC while paying fees into Apple's wallet — kept resurfacing elsewhere: the EU moved to file antitrust charges over the same NFC block (EU charges over NFC blocking), a US credit union filed a class action accusing Apple of profiting from issuer fees (Affinity Credit Union's class action), and by late 2023 Apple was offering rivals access to its tap-and-go system to settle the EU case.
First-order effects
- If the banks' request were granted, Apple would face a single negotiating bloc for Apple Pay terms in Australia instead of individual card issuers it can play against each other; its filing aims to keep that leverage intact.
- The four banks remain unable to boycott Apple Pay or demand NFC access as a group unless the ACCC authorizes it — their only immediate recourse is accepting Apple's bilateral terms or staying off the iPhone wallet.
Second-order effects
- Rejection at home pushes the same issuers' complaint into friendlier venues: the EU's NFC charges and the Affinity Credit Union class action show the fee-and-access dispute migrating to regulators and courts rather than dying with the ACCC decision.
- Other mobile-wallet operators and card networks watch whether collective bargaining gets approved anywhere, since a precedent in one jurisdiction gives issuers elsewhere a template for pressuring Apple on NFC terms.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — regulatory pressure in Europe forcing Apple to open tap-and-go to rivals — NFC access stops being a privately controlled gatekeeper asset and starts being treated as infrastructure that platforms must share, converting a bargaining dispute into a structural change in who can build a mobile wallet.
- Payment-card issuers gain a durable lever: the combination of antitrust scrutiny and litigation means Apple's wallet economics (issuer fees plus exclusive NFC) face negotiated-or-imposed limits rather than unilateral pricing.
The trend: Mobile-wallet NFC access is shifting from platform-owner gatekeeping toward regulator- and court-forced openness, with each jurisdiction's ruling feeding the next challenge.