UK's CMA says Apple's iPhone NFC terms still keep Apple Pay rivals out, and proposes cheaper accessUK's CMA says Apple's iPhone NFC terms still keep Apple Pay rivals out, and proposes cheaper access

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposed on 20 October 2026 that Apple must open the iPhone's contactless chip to rival payment and wallet apps on cheaper, wider terms than it offers today.

The chip in question is NFC, the short-range radio that makes tap-to-pay work. In the UK only Apple Pay and Apple Wallet use it freely. The proposal is a draft conduct requirement, a binding rule the CMA can impose on Apple because it designated Apple's mobile platform with strategic market status on 22 October 2025. It is not in force: the consultation runs until 11:59pm on 17 November 2026, and the CMA will decide after reading the responses.

Why the CMA says the current offer is not working

Apple already lets outside companies use NFC in the UK through what it calls the NFC & SE Platform, available since October 2024. The CMA's consultation document says that, two years on, it has found no evidence of a single NFC app launching in the UK through it. Mastercard and Visa announced developer services built on the platform this year, which the CMA counts as some movement and no more.

The reasons it gives are the terms. Companies told the regulator the fees are too high, singling out a fixed charge and charges that rise once an app passes a certain number of users. They also objected to non-negotiable conditions that Apple can change, delay or withdraw. The CMA concludes that Apple's current fees are too high for many developers to build a viable business.

It sets that against the European Economic Area, where the European Commission accepted Apple's commitments in July 2024 to give wallet apps free access using a second method, host card emulation. Vipps launched the first rival tap-to-pay app on iPhone in December 2024, and PayPal, Curve, BBVA and Klarna followed in 2025.

What would Apple have to do?

The draft requirement, set out in full in the consultation, would oblige Apple to:

• Offer both routes into NFC and let each developer pick: the secure element, a dedicated chip that stores card details on the phone and is what Apple offers today, or host card emulation (HCE), where the card details stay on the provider's servers and the phone receives one-time tokens.
• Grant access to any developer who asks, refusing only where an app would break the law or industry security and privacy standards.
• Let people choose a rival app as their default for tapping, and give developers a way to check whether their app is the default, without limits on how often they can ask the user to switch.
• Give rival apps the iOS features behind Express Mode, which lets a card such as a transit pass work without unlocking the phone, and Power Reserve, which keeps it working for a while after the battery runs flat.
• Charge only fees it can justify to the CMA against principles of cost, value, flexibility and simplicity, with a complaints process for developers.

The changes would arrive in the first version of iOS released after a final decision. The rule covers more than payments: the draft names digital ID, loyalty cards, car and hotel keys and staff badges.

Apple's position, as the CMA records it, is that its platform already provides access and that any intervention should be limited to the secure element. The CMA's provisional view is that both methods can be used securely for payments, and it notes that HCE already carries payments in Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet. The Paypers, relaying the Financial Times, reported on 19 October that Apple argues its restrictions protect users from fraud and is likely to challenge the decision in court.

Does the UK want free access, like the EU?

No, and the coverage has blurred this. AppleInsider's summary describes the UK wanting access at no cost and treats the EU terms as holding adoption back. Reading the 147-page consultation, we found the opposite on both points. The CMA cites the EU's free HCE access as the success story, and its draft lets Apple charge for NFC in the UK. The document says outright that it has not copied the EU approach and diverges from it on pricing.

What the CMA asks for is fees it expects to be low and well below Apple's current charges. Where the UK goes further than the EU is scope: every kind of NFC use rather than mainly payments, both technical routes, and the Express Mode features. Sarah Cardell, the CMA's chief executive, said the proposals "open the door to more innovation, more choice and economic growth".

Our take

For anyone in the UK with an iPhone, nothing changes yet. A final decision follows the November consultation, the changes land in the next iOS release after that, and only then can banks build. One fintech told the CMA an HCE wallet took it 12 months from start to launch in the EU, and a secure element wallet would take 18 to 24. On that pace we would not expect a Monzo or Revolut tap-to-pay button inside its own app much before 2028, and a court challenge from Apple, if the reports are right, could push it further.

We checked Apple's own developer page for the platform on 20 October. It lists the UK among eligible countries from iOS 18.1, and it publishes no fees at all: the price arrives only inside an agreement a company signs after applying. That is the heart of the complaint. A bank cannot cost a product against a fee it cannot see, and the CMA's demand that Apple publish its terms may matter as much as any cut.

Two details matter to ordinary owners. The draft is written around phones and tablets and leaves smartwatches out of its definitions, so paying with an Apple Watch would stay Apple Pay only. And the transit features are the part to watch: in Manchester the Bee Card in Apple Wallet already pays fares with Express Mode, and a rival wallet without that would lose at every tram stop.

The bigger picture is that Apple is now negotiating the same question in three places. The EU settled it with free access in 2024, the UK wants paid but cheaper access with more features, and rival digital wallets are one of the five restrictions in the US Justice Department case that developers doubt a settlement would fix. APPDOOK expects the UK fight to be about the size of the fee rather than whether the door opens. Apple has already conceded the access in principle, and the CMA has conceded it may charge.