“Apple Inc is struggling to persuade Australia’s big banks to sign up for its Apple Pay mobile payment system, people familiar with the matter say, as the technology giant works from an unfamiliar negotiating position: weakness, not strength,” Matt Siegel reports for Reuters.
“Apple rolled out the service in Australia last month with support for payment cards issued directly by American Express Co. The move is part of the iPhone supplier’s global drive to extend its mobile consumer electronics prowess into financial services, with a China launch expected soon,” Siegel reports. “But the firm has yet to strike a deal with any of the four main banks – ANZ, National Australia Bank (NAB), Commonwealth Bank and Westpac. That sets it adrift from 80 percent of consumers using mobile payments systems linked to other credit cards in a market Westpac sees as being worth more than $2 billion this year.”
“Like the people familiar with negotiations between Apple and the lenders, sector watchers say the banks feel little sense of urgency to conclude a deal,” Siegel reports. “[The situation] has angered opposition Labor Party lawmaker Ed Husic, who last month wrote a letter to the RBA accusing the lenders of engaging in anti-competitive behavior at consumers’ expense. ‘The bottom line is we’ve got an arm wrestle going on here and the longer it goes on, the longer the customers have to stand by at the edges… waiting for some sort of resolution,’ Husic told Reuters. For Husic, the longer the stalemate drags on, the more likely a potential investigation of the banks for anti-competitive behavior becomes. ‘If it drags on, I think the drum beat for that type of action will grow,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, this will get sorted out sooner than later as banks and retailers realize that people want to use Apple Pay, so it is in their best interested to work with Apple instead of collude to blockade it.
SEE ALSO:
Aussie consumers lose as banks effectively boycott Apple Pay – November 27, 2015