BRUSSELS, April 19 (Reuters) -
Apple's (AAPL.O), opens new tab offer to open its tap-and-go mobile payments
system to rivals is set to be approved by EU antitrust regulators as soon as
next month after it tweaked some of the terms, people familiar with the matter
said.
Apple's bid to settle the four-year
investigation would help it dodge a finding of wrongdoing wrongdoing and stave off a
potential hefty fine that could be as much as 10% of its global annual
turnover.
Apple's tap-and-go technology called
near-field communication, or NFC, allows for contactless payments with mobile
wallets. The European Commission two years ago accused Apple of thwarting
competition for its Apple Pay mobile wallet by preventing rival mobile wallets
app developers from accessing its tap-and-go technology.
The U.S. tech giant in January
offered to let rivals access its NFC on its iPhones, iPads and other Apple
mobile devices free of charge without having to use Apple Pay or Apple Wallet,
with access based on fair and non-discriminatory criteria.
It also offered to provide
additional functionalities including defaulting of preferred payment apps,
access to authentication features such as FaceID and a suppression mechanism,
and also to set up a dispute settlement mechanism.
Apple was asked to tweak some of the
terms following feedback from rivals and customers. The NFC proposal would be
for 10 years. The Commission aims to accept the offer by the summer, with May
as the likeliest month although the timing could still change as it waits for
Apple to work out the final technical details, the people familiar with the
matter said.
An agenda-setting and market-moving
journalist, Foo Yun Chee is a 20-year veteran at Reuters. Her stories on high
profile mergers mergers have pushed up the European telecoms index, lifted companies'
shares and helped investors decide on their move.
Her knowledge and experience of
European antitrust laws and developments helped her broke stories on Microsoft,
Google, Amazon, numerous market-moving mergers and antitrust investigations.
She has previously reported on Greek
politics and companies, when Greece's entry into the eurozone meant it punched
above its weight on the international stage, as well as Dutch corporate giants
and the quirks of Dutch society and culture that never fail to charm readers.
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