Germany forces Apple to let other mobile wallet services use iPhone’s NFC chip

A new German law requires Apple to allow other mobile payments services access to the iPhone’s NFC chip for payments to allow them to fully compete with Apple Pay. Apple initially completely locked down the NFC chip so that it could be used only by Apple Pay. It later allowed some third-party apps to use the chip but has always refused to do so for other mobile payment apps. Banks have been demanding access to the NFC chip for their own payment apps since 2016. Australia’s three biggest banks claimed that locking them out of the NFC chip was anti-competitive behavior.