EU Antitrust Officials Are Looking Into Apple Pay, iPhone NFC Chips

Officials across the European Union have already made their thoughts on Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project clear. Now those concerns have extended to Apple Pay, with EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s office probing whether the company’s pre-installed mobile payments software is playing dirty with the competition, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. European Commission officials asked mobile-payments providers, banks, and app developers in September “about how Apple Inc. devices may favor Apple Pay over other payment solutions,” Bloomberg wrote, citing MLex. In an email statement to Bloomberg, regulators confirmed the office was monitoring “possible anti-competitive market practices and abusive conduct” without naming Apple.