Sources: the EU will file antitrust charges against Apple next week for allegedly blocking third-parties from using NFC for Apple Pay
EU will accuse the tech giant of blocking financial groups from its Apple Pay mobile system — Apple is set to face fresh antitrust charges …
Context & Ripple Effects
The charge sheet is the culmination of a long runway: Brussels first signaled in 2020 rulemaking discussions that it would likely force competitors' access to the iPhone's payment NFC, then reportedly drafted a fine-focused case over Apple Pay terms in October 2021. This filing makes that plan formal.
It also lands while Apple is already fighting a second front — the App Store music-streaming charges pressed after Spotify's complaint — so the EU is now attacking both Apple's software gatekeeping and its hardware chokepoint within months of each other.
First-order effects
- Apple formally becomes the subject of an abuse-of-dominance case in mobile payments, with the NFC restriction as the core allegation and a potential fine on the table per the earlier reporting.
- Banks and financial groups excluded from iPhone tap-to-pay get a regulatory vehicle for their complaints, since the charges exist precisely because they were blocked from the NFC hardware.
Second-order effects
- Rival wallet providers gain a credible path to shipping contactless payments on iPhones if the EU forces NFC access, eroding Apple Pay's default position on its own devices.
- The outcome pressures Apple's broader integrated-hardware strategy: any mandated NFC opening sets a precedent other regulators and complainants can cite for demanding access to other proprietary components.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the App Store and NFC cases, EU enforcement shifts from policing app-store terms to mandating access at the hardware layer — a structural check on device makers controlling which services can run natively.
- Payment networks and banks would gain negotiating leverage over platform owners generally, since dominant-device gatekeeping of payment rails becomes a litigated question rather than a design decision.
The trend: Antitrust enforcement against Apple is expanding from software distribution rules into hardware-level access mandates, with the EU's mobile-payments case as the test case for whether regulators can open proprietary components like NFC.