Apple Tap-to-Pay Tech Gets Extra Round of EU Antitrust Scrutiny

  • Retailers asked for comment on alternatives to NFC payments
  • EU already sent Apple a formal antitrust complaint in 2022

A customer uses Apple pay mobile payment at a contactless payment terminal inside an hypermarket in Prague, Czech Republic.

Photographer: Milan Jaros/Bloomberg
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Apple Inc.’s tap-to-pay technology faces a fresh round of European Union antitrust scrutiny, after the bloc’s competition investigators dispatched a series of questions to retailers as part of an ongoing probe into the iPhone maker’s closely guarded payments chip.

The move, confirmed by a European Commission spokesperson, comes on the heels of formal EU antitrust charges against Cupertino, California-based Apple in May last year, which claimed that its actions restricted competition in the market for mobile wallets on iOS devices.