PayPal is poised to take advantage of the iPhone’s newly opened-up NFC capabilities by developing a mobile wallet of its own for European Union (EU) users, according to TechCrunch.
On August 14, Apple announced that, starting with iOS 18.1, developers will be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.
Using the new NFC and SE (Secure Element) APIs, developers will be able to offer in-app contactless transactions for in-store payments, car keys, closed-loop transit, corporate badges, student IDs, home keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty and rewards cards, and event tickets, with government IDs to be supported in the future.
Apple says the NFC and SE APIs leverage the Secure Element — an industry-standard, certified chip designed to store sensitive information securely on device. The tech giant says it’s dedicated significant resources to design a solution that protects users’ security and privacy, leveraging a number of Apple’s proprietary hardware and software technologies when making a contactless transaction, including the Secure Enclave, biometric authentication, and Apple servers.
Though PayPal hasn’t yet explicitly confirmed it will now develop a competing wallet thanks to these new APIs [application programming interfaces], the company has broadly hinted in recent weeks that such a plan is in the works, according to TechCrunch.
For example, PayPal CEO Alex Chriss has previously said the NFC changes would make it “very easy” for PayPal to “provide a wallet in an Android or iPhone operating system.” In the EU, consumers will be able to set a third-party wallet as their default, instead of Apple Wallet, as part of Apple’s compliance with the EU’s new regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
BTW, the EU is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. Its policies aim “to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development.”
