Apple PaySource: iMore

What you need to know

  • EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has said she has received many expressions of concern over Apple Pay.
  • Vestager was speaking at a news briefing at Web Summit in Lisbon.
  • Apple is at the center of an EU antitrust probe over Apple Pay.

The EU's antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has told media that she has received many expressions of concern over Apple Pay.

As reported by CNBC, Vestager was speaking at a press briefing at Web Summit in Lisbon. According to the report, she told the media:

"We get many, many concerns when it comes to Apple Pay for pure competition reasons... People see that it becomes increasingly difficult to compete in the market for easy payments."

Apple is currently being probed by EU regulators over possible anticompetitive practices relating to Apple Pay. Issues include whether online sales companies may have been asked to use Apple's mobile payment service ahead of rival services. Companies who work with Apple has also been asked whether they were told to enable certain types of payment method, or whether they may have been under contractual obligation to integrate Apple Pay into their services, apps or website.

According to the report, the European Commission is also investigating an antitrust complaint made by Apple's music streaming rival Spotify, over the terms of its App Store. Vestager says the EU is in the process of analyzing Apple's response to that particular complaint.

As CNBC notes, Vestager has taken a hard line on U.S. tech firms, imposing fines of over $9.5 billion against Google in the last two years over antitrust issues. As such, Apple will be desperately keen not to go down the same path.