Australia’s four biggest banks are seeking permission from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to launch an official Apple boycott.
In a 137-page document, the banks — Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, and Westpac — argue that Apple is acting in an “intransigent, closed and controlling” manner regarding Apple Pay. The four financial institutions also accuse Apple of seeking to benefit from the banks’ existing investment in contactless infrastructure in the country.
“By locking out any independent access to the NFC function on iOS devices, Apple is seeking for itself the exclusive use of Australia’s existing NFC terminal infrastructure for the making of integrated mobile payments using iOS devices,” the banks say. “Yet, this infrastructure was built and paid for by Australian banks and merchants for the benefit of all Australians.”
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This isn’t the first time Apple and Australian banks have clashed over the latter’s unwillingness to say “G’day” to Apple Pay.
Previously, Apple claimed the banks act as a “cartel” trying to slow innovation and protect the 66 percent of Australian credit card balances and 70 percent of household deposits they currently hold.
Apple says its reason for operating a “closed” platform is to protect users from security threats. “Our hardware, software and services are built in a deeply integrated manner so we can provide the highest possible security,” according to Apple.
As a disruptor, Apple is certainly no stranger to controversy when it alters the practices of established giants in industries it enters. Still, in the interests of Australian customers, hopefully this prolonged squabble will be sorted out soon.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says it will make its final ruling on the dispute with Apple this month.
Source: PYMNTS
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
11 responses to “4 Australian banks want to launch an Apple boycott”
When has ANY bank, Australian or elsewhere, EVER put customer’s priorities, happiness or satisfaction first over their own…? [crickets].
If I am going to be suspicious of any party in this negotiation, it’s going to be ‘the banks’.
“4 Australian banks want to launch an Apple boycott”
Good. Let them.
Would be funny if apple opened their own bank in Australia.
“Apple* is seeking for itself the exclusive use of Australia’s existing NFC terminal infrastructure”
(*other smartphones are available.)
Been using Apple Pay with ANZ Bank in Australia for a few months & luv it.
The Australian retailer’s have paid for this! not the big banks with excessive fees!
It’s time for a royal commission to sort this mob out
As an Australian the banks all have there own bank phone pay app which works. ANZ is the only bank to embrace apple pay and has won lots of converts. All there squealing is just about there rip off fees that have been budding the public for years lots of money for transactions which has been shown cost cents.
Thats why the aus banks have the largest profit margins in the works really large compared to there user base size.
Kangaroo is right bring on the royal commission in to there behaviour they are spending lots of money to stop an enquiry into there practices.
Make no mistake about it, this is the Aussie Banks wanting to own and control the whole enchilada (and fees) while Apple understands that opening up the NFC chip, the Secure Element and the TouchID biometric authentication sensor for potentially poorly coded proprietary financial apps from thousands of Banks and financial institutions worldwide running in the background all the time soaking up CPU and RAM is the last thing that Apple users want.
ANZ has been rewarded with a 20% surge in new customers since joining ApplePay – that is why the other Big 3 Aussie Banks have re-opened negotiations with Apple (and why they’ve run crying to the ACCC) – they’re worried they’re going to lose all their most lucrative demographic – Apple users – to the ANZ Bank.
I, like thousands of other Aussies have now signed up for an ANZ credit card so I can pay for everything with a tap of the Apple Watch on my wrist. With Apple capturing 41-45% quarterly smartphone market share in Australia and Apple users having far higher incomes than Android users, just wait until the other Big 3 banks give in and provide Aussie customers what they want before they lose all their customers to the ANZ.
>”In regards to Apple’s arguments that opening up access to Apple Pay would make its mobile payments system less secure, the banks countered with the fact that Google and Samsung have done so without issue.”
It is ironic that the Banks would say this considering that Samsung Pay has already been compromised thanks to an incredibly vulnerable tokenisation implementation that allows criminals to skim a Samsung Pay token as a Samsung mobile device transaction takes place at a POS and then new valid tokens can be generated from it and used ad infinitum rapidly draining the poor victim’s bank account. THAT strikes me as more than a bit of an ISSUE!
Then there is Android as a whole. Are the Banks really not aware that Android is a magnet for 99% of the World’s mobile malware according to Cisco, F-Secure and Kaspersky? Do they not know that 17% of Android apps were malware in disguise according to Symantec? Are they that out of touch that they are unaware that 87.7% of Android devices have unpatched critical rootkit-level vulnerabilities going back 4 years and that it takes 18 months for 30% of Android devices to be patched while the rest NEVER get patches (according to Cambridge University)?
If Samsung can’t code their mobile payments app correctly, what hope have we that every little Bank and Financial institution that wants to rig up its own proprietary mobile payments scheme running in the background all the time on your smartphone isn’t going to be swiss cheese for bad actors?
Please Banks, leave such foundational security infrastructure as mobile payments to Apple – they know what they’re doing.
Sheesh.
The actual problem here is that there is no standard for NFC-based payment system
Oh the irony – a second vulnerability and easy exploit has now been reported in Samsung Pay as of Oct 19th.
“Salvatore Mendoza demonstrated the first vulnerability at Black Hat in August, where he was able to eavesdrop on a payment transaction, generate a token, and use that new token to make an unauthorized purchase in a different location. Next week, he will be demonstrating the new Samsung Pay vulnerability at the Ekoparty security conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
At Black Hat, he showed how an attacker could eavesdrop on the MST transmission that the Samsung phone sends to emulate a magnetic stripe signal and take advantage of a weakness in how the tokens were generated, allowing him to predict new tokens.”
“The new vulnerability that Mendoza has uncovered uses the NFC communication standard. “NFC is supposed to be more secure,” Mendoza said. “But there is a flaw in it.”
With the MST vulnerability, a special device was needed, which cost Mendoza about $50 to make. The new NFC vulnerability can be exploited with no new equipment at all — just an app. “It’s easier to carry out the new attack,” he said.”
So much for the banks arguing that “Samsung and Google already provide access to this technology without detriment to security,”
I like when Commbank talks about the security of its application on Android, but they simply refuse to use the fingerprint reader for authentication. You need to use a clunky 4 digit pin to login to app and NFC payments. This simply shows how much they trust Android implementation….